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The Scroll, its Seals, the Songs

Behold the Lamb. The Baptist proclaimed this message to his followers. When Jesus arrived, the forerunner cleared the air and made plain the character of the Messiah and His Mission. The Lamb came to take away the sin of the world.

The Apostle John heard this declaration and believed. He began to follow Jesus.

At the time of the writing of Revelation, John again encountered the Lamb. Here, we read of how this man beheld the Lamb in His glory. He had been transported to the place where he could witness the full scope of Christ’s reign over Creation.

We come to Revelation 5 and begin to see a series of passages that describe life on earth. The vision starts with words on pages that are sealed followed by trumpets, thunders, and bowls.  Each one of these things come in sets of seven.

First, John saw a book. It was a something of a scroll. It rested in the right hand of the One who sat on the Throne.

The unusual thing about this scroll was the way that it was written. The Apostle noticed that this scroll had writing on both sides of it.

Scrolls inscribed by pen and ink had to be crafted on one side only. The reason was that having ink on both sides of the parchment would have created a sticky mess. The pages would have been rendered unreadable.

The significance of having words on both sides of the scroll is that Heaven reads the way of our world from a different perspective. The Throne of the Lord possesses the vantage point of omnipotence, omniscience, and everywhere presence.

Imagine a fine tapestry, an elaborate oriental rug perhaps. One side is ordered and ornate. Go to the other side and what is seen is how the threads are woven together and tied off.

Think of the fabric of our earth this way. We see what we see, but there is a whole series of unseen strands, seams, and knots fashioned according to the mind of God.

The King of History

Seven seals held the scroll together. These would have appeared to John as official-looking fasteners, each carrying an imprint of governmental authority.

In Roman days, the Empire affixed wax seals impressed with an imperial symbol. The seal could only be opened, or broken, by a designated authority recognized by the government. The tomb of Jesus was sealed in such a manner. To break a seal unlawfully was counted as a high offense and was punishable by death.

John sat in wonder at the scene before him. A strong angel posed the big question: “Who is worthy to open the book and loose its seals?” (Revelation 5:2).

All was still. None moved to take the scroll.

John was crestfallen. He wept much. He sensed the importance of the words contained in that book.

Who was worthy? One of the elders among the 24 seated in that throne room came forward to comfort the Apostle.

“Weep no more! The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof” (Revelation 5:6). The Son of Man had triumphed in His work on earth. He could lay claim to dominion in every corner of it.

It was not by power, nor by might, that this victory came. The Son won by the Spirit moving through His weakness in humility.

And so here John beheld the Lamb standing as the One slain. Memories of the Cross flashed into his consciousness. By that offering of His broken body, the Son gained the authority to set in motion the progression of human history that would be unveiled in the coming pages.

Seals unsealed. Trumpets sounded out. Thunders roared. Bowls poured forth. These things are coming soon.

Worship Breaks Forth

First, however, John sees a season of absolute worship. The Lion prevailed as the Lamb. He gave His life as the ransom for all. He took the scroll. The Story’s final chapters are in His hands. The grandest of grand finales are about to be shown to all present. The joy of the moment long anticipated could not be contained. Father, Son, and Spirit altogether in union with saints and angels shall celebrate as John looked on.

The rounds of rejoicing begin with the elders, the representatives of mankind there in the presence of the Throne. A new song burst forth from them as they bowed to the Lamb. They took up their harps; they grabbed their guitars and began to play and sing.

Fragrances rose from the bowls that they held. The whole place was made to smell of prayer. The supplications of the saints of the all ages scented the scene.

The song was full of the lyrics of redemption. The work of the Lamb had drawn men to Him and to His salvation. Redeemed to God by the Blood – a new and living institution had formed. This is the Church of Christ in her glory, members in particular called out from “every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

Paul wrote of this mystery of oneness begun by work of the Son in his letter to the Ephesians. “Now there are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

Yes, the oracles of God were sent to the world through the people of Israel, out of them came the Son and Savior. Now, all are one in Him who is the Chief Cornerstone of the Temple, a holy habitation filled with Spirit.

This moment in time is what all believers — all those who have chosen to hear and become friends of God — have been waiting for. No wonder their joy breaks through. Soon they will form a kingdom of priests to rule and reign with Him.

All Creation Joins in Song

The sound of this song ripples in all directions and to all creatures. The voices of untold angels enter into the chorus of faith. “And the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000, and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11).

Again from Ephesians, we read Paul’s words about this angelic interest in the program of redemption: “His intent was that now, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10).

The Story told on earth speaks beyond the clans, tribes, and nations formed from the dust. The record of Righteousness goes forth to the eternal audience, to the greater congregation mentioned in Psalm 40, to the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1).

God’s purpose was to demonstrate His ultimate power to the realm invisible to our eyes. He revealed that the nature of the Lamb was the way for Him to roar as the Lion throughout the universe. It was this joy that Christ incarnated, living as one of us, set before Him in His mission.

Revelation 5 climaxes with a declaration of total communion found at last in all the Lord has made. “And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying, ‘Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him who sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.’”

May we think upon this reality, for it is reality for the Lord who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. Let us look unto Jesus. Let us behold the Lamb, “… the Author and Finisher of our Faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Alleluia and Amen.

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The Scene of Sovereignty

“Come up and see, and I will show you things to come.”

Jesus extended this invitation to John the Apostle in Revelation 4. At once, he went in the Spirit through the open door and into the place of majesty.

The scene before John reflected the sovereignty of the Almighty. All was honor and glory and fullness.

Revelation began with the Lord confirming the triumph of the Finished Work of the Lamb of God. John celebrated the cleansing power of the Blood to release us from the stain of sin. He fell before the Son when he saw Him. Awed by the Presence, John could only put his face to the ground. And then Jesus touched him and lifted him.

The encounter represented the personal relationship Jesus establishes with each of His sheep. He proceeded to give John words and a mission to communicate those words to the particular churches and their leaders.

Judgment indeed begins at the house of God. These congregations were family to the Lord, and as the good, good Father, He took note of areas worthy of commendation as well as those things in need of correction in each assembly. He gave directions and charged them to turn to the way of Truth.

Now, in Revelation 4, John gets taken higher. Up and up he went to bask in glimpses of the Lord in authority over Creation. In Revelation 5, the Apostle will begin to witness the scope of the Son’s position over human history and its ultimate outcome. John’s experience fulfilled what was written in Psalm 119:96: “I have seen the end of all perfection.”

Emerald Expression

Consider the Throne of Heaven as John expressed it in Revelation 4. One sat upon the seat over Creation. Only One — God the Son — and His appearance was full of sparkling and radiant spectacle. A rainbow enveloped the place with its emerald hue, the bright green, emphasized. The saying goes that someone can be green with envy. But in the economy of God, green symbolizes renewal, restoration, and resurrection.

Autumn brings falling leaves and their hues of brown and yellow and red as the decay takes its toll. Winter sends cold. Snows fall. The world gets iced over.

With Spring comes the thaw. Warmth softens the soil. The Easter lily blossoms and trees and fields come alive again. Green with freshness, our landscapes and vistas shout the arrival of a new beginning.

That’s what John is being shown – a New Creation is coming. The world has been entrapped in death. The wages of sin have exacted their tolls over and over and over.  The ruler of darkness, the liar and the prince of the power of the air has had his way. His time is short, however.

The Son’s Day approaches. Ultimate reality is communicated in the vividness of these visions brought before John. The Lord reigns.

The Community

Portrayed for John is the community of Heaven and its unity with the earth. Unlike the individualistic, self-oriented, destructive nature of this world’s cosmic system, the Lord shares His government. Note that 24 “elders” are situated around the Throne. They are robed in white, crowned with gold.

Who are these attendants? The testimony concerning their garments and the crowns indicate that they are representative believers who worship the Lamb. No Scripture identifies them. They discern the sense of attitude proceeding from the One on the Throne. They sit in counsel, ruling and reigning with the Son, their presence is a precursor of how His saints shall rule with Christ in a glorious era to come to earth.

Thunders and lightnings and voices are heard. Lamps — seven of them — are seen. These torches are like the tongues of fire seen in Acts 2. These fires represent the manifold nature of the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent to live in those who come to Him. Isaiah 11:2 gives some definition of His sevenfold nature: “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.”

Seven is the number of wholeness and completion in the Bible, and the Spirit evidenced the Finished Work of redemption in coming to fill the disciples of Jesus. Revelation 5:4 refers to the seven “eyes” of God in another reference to the Spirit. This reflects the omniscience and omnipresence of this Person of the Godhead.

For John, these visions indicate the authority of Heaven in the spirit realm. Satan may have a grip on power in the atmosphere he stimulates with worldliness, but above it all sits the Lamb of God on His Throne.

Four Creatures and the Crystal Sea

Also, we read of beasts bearing different faces. The imagery is similar to what we read in Ezekiel chapter 1. One beast has the face of a lion, another, the face of an ox, the third, the face of a man, and the fourth,  a face of an eagle.

In keeping with what the Lord is revealing to His Apostle, these beings represent the Lord’s sovereignty and His power among all things that have the breath of life in them. The lion points to animals in the wild as the ox speaks of domesticated beasts. The eagle represents the fowl of the air. And then there is man, the one made in God’s image to exercise dominion.

These beings possess six wings to designate their representative status, similar to how military rank is demonstrated. This picture would have been commonly understood given the attire worn by the Roman soldiers throughout the region where John and the churches lived. Also, the four creatures were said to be “full of eyes” — they perceived the things going on in their realms of representation.

God’s Throne is in command of Creation, every part of it. He is in charge and His purposes continue.

What else did John observe before the Throne? A sea of glass with the appearance of crystal.

To the ancient mindset, the image of the sea stirred fear. Dark and stormy, with waves and forceful currents, the waters were most often spoken of as signifying chaos and impending doom.

In Heaven, the sea is clear and still, firm in its form. John once witnessed Jesus awakened from sleep during a turbulent and raging storm on Galilee’s waters. The disciples were sure their boat was about sink to the bottom. Terrified, they cried out to Jesus. With calm, the Son stood and spoke to the air: “Be muzzled” (see Mark 4:39). At His word, the wind and the waves fell silent and calm.

Before the Throne, no chaos exists. All is in order and under full control.

Harmony and Worship

Taken together this scene is punctuated for John with music. The sounds of worship are heard from the elders and from the beasts. Their songs are ones the Lord wanted John to teach the believers to sing as they faced seasons of trial. The rest of the letter that is the Revelation to John will graphically inform the Jesus followers of the troubles destined to come.

The message we must take from Revelation is this one: the Lord reigns in majesty. Hold fast to this Truth in spite of human circumstances. The Lamb who was slain is alive forevermore and we are His people. Seated above, He ever intercedes for us.

Heaven knows. Heaven sees. Heaven sings.

And so should we lift our voices in praise to Him:

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”

“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for You have created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

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Jesus at the Door

Revelation is the Bible book that piques our curiosity in a major way. Its words turn lots of heads. Strong reactions are provoked. Some take it literally. Others read it as figurative – moral stories with hidden messages. Others dismiss it as fantasy, a collection of allegorical expressions from the wacky minds of persecuted people suffering from martyr complexes.

To take a look at this part of our Scriptures means that we first have to consider who received these words and to whom they were directed.  Like the majority of the New Testament books, Revelation was crafted as a letter. It had a sender and an intended audience. This is a reality presented right up front.

The angel came to earth to visit John the Apostle and reveal “things that must shortly take place” (Revelation 1:1). Before the discourses about the things above and events afar off in the future, the words provide details about the situations on the ground in the congregations as they existed in Asia Minor as Year 100 approached.

There’s a promise right up front for us: “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). He who ignores Revelation misses out on something awesome.

At this point of his hearing, seeing, and writing, John was the only one of the original 12 Apostles yet alive. He had survived waves of attacks on the Christian movement. He still witnessed the Gospel spread throughout the Empire and beyond it – Thomas, the doubter of John 20, had reached and perished in India by this time.

John watched over Mary, the mother of Jesus, as he was instructed to by Jesus as He, the Savior, hung upon the Cross. Eventually, the Apostle wound up in Ephesus, serving the congregation that had been founded and nurtured by Paul and his companions, Priscilla and Aquila.

John saw the Lord in his time of trouble. The message came to him as he was in exile on Patmos, an island used by the Roman Empire for banished political prisoners. He was sent there “because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9).

Circumstances aside, John worshipped in Spirit and Truth. Jesus met him and commanded him to write a letter to the churches of the region. The Son delivered seven particular messages addressed to the leaders of these congregations.

Kingdom of Priests

For starters, believers who take up and read Revelation are reinforced in their identity as members of Christ, the first born of the dead, the One who loved us and “released us from our sins by His Blood” (Revelation 1:5).  As ruler of all of kings on earth, the Alpha and Omega who possesses all dominion, has called his followers to serve as Kingdom Priests.

This phrasing hearkens back to Exodus 19. There, the Israelites, freshly delivered from their long season of slavery in Egypt were told of their purpose in the plan of the Lord: “… you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

What does it mean to be a priest in the economy of God? The book of Leviticus outlined the duties delegated to the tribe chosen to serve at the Tabernacle, the worship center for Israel. Among other things, their primary jobs were to teach the commandments, to receive the sin offerings and sacrifice them, to inspect those stricken with leprosy and pronounce cleanness and uncleanness. They served the people as they were to get to know God and helped them to learn how to walk in His Presence.

Did they fulfill this purpose faithfully? They did not, as the Old Testament stories show us. That does not mean that they are done away with.

These priestly duties now fall to us who belong to Jesus. We are preeminently priests, servants of His Temple, the Temple of His Body (see John 2). We talk of God. We point to the one true Finished Work offering of the Son. We encourage people to draw near to Him. We reveal Heaven’s thoughts on sin and repentance, on forgiveness and reconciliation.

Touched by the Son

There, in the setting when Revelation was communicated, Jesus sought to draw His disciples back into order with their great calling. For this reason, I see it as important for me to put myself into each of the churches addressed in the early chapters of this book.

I am called by the Good Shepherd. He knows me by name. He first loved me and now I can love with His love.

John, being the disciple who most talked of the love of God, wrote Revelation with an emphasis on the love that comes from the Lover of all souls. The close of the first chapter describes how John fell faint at the feet of His Master. Jesus was gloriously attired and He possessed flaming eyes of fire. His face shone like the sun.

We need to take note of how Jesus responded to John: “And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Do not be afraid, I am the First and the Last, and the living One, and I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore. …” (Revelation 1:17-18).

Ponder these introductory passages before you read further. These words give us a true sense of how Christ yet seeks to relate to those on earth. Even resurrected and positioned in glory, Jesus comes as One who serves. As He washed the feet of His followers in the Upper Room, He now lifts up the faces of those cast down.

Knowledge of His perfect love should drive away our fears about Him. He came not to bring us to sorrowing that leaves us paralyzed. He seeks to encourage us in the Mission He communicated. There’s a big world that He’s in love with, so in love that He came and died to make the Way for any who would turn to Him to become royal family members.

Can you see Him like this? Sure, those eyes of fire might burn us as they burned John. Imagine the touch of that hand of grace, that right hand of full authority reaches to us. Arise and be comforted for the Lord is God and He has saved you.

Later on in Revelation we will read of His coming as the Conqueror. Evil shall be once and for all defeated, the wicked ones cast away and assigned their places among the dead, separated from the Holy Presence.

Hear and Open to Him

What Jesus told the churches listed here in Revelation 2 and 3 was particular. However, He emphasized that every one of His followers must tune his ear to hear what the Spirit has to say.

To the Ephesus congregation, He instructed them to get back to the simple love that once characterized their fellowship. To Smyrna, a group under persecution, the Word was to fear not and hold fast. Pergamum was warned to turn back to Truth and away from false teaching.

Thyatira was commended for deeds of love and faith and service, but chastised for the practices of immorality promoted by some in the church. “Wake up and strengthen what little you have left” was the charge given to those in Sardis, a fellowship on life support with a remnant of true believers.

Philadelphia was a faithful band of followers and the promise was that they would be kept in their hours of testing. Last was Laodicea, the lukewarm, self-satisfied congregation, a lost sheep church that was on the mind of Jesus. He was there for those in Laodicea, knocking at the door, waiting for an opening to sit and dine with them on a meal of truth and life.

As believers today, we can find ourselves in any of these seven spiritual environments. The great news for us is that the Son cannot leave nor forsake us. He comes. He knocks. He patiently waits, hoping for us to open up to Him.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My Voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and with dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

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Noah and the Voice of God

The Voice of the Lord is the important element in Bible stories. We discover this very early in our reading of the Word. See Genesis 1:3 “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

After falling into sin, Adam and Eve heard the Voice walking in the Garden to find them. Voices generally don’t have feet. This phrasing points to the first chapter of John’s gospel. There, Jesus is referenced as the Word made alive. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Bible teaches us about the God who is Here, with us, as Immanuel. The primary problem for us as people is one of hearing Him.

The Lord came to Adam and Eve. They were fearful, but the sound of the Voice drew them out of hiding.

The Scriptures show us just how devoted God is to those He created in His image. Note that God met Cain after he slain his brother Abel. The sad part of that story is that Cain departed from the presence of the Lord, rather than seeking to find forgiveness and rest in His Maker.

Once Cain got east of Eden, we see that he and his family members became busy people. They made tools and instruments. They formed communities and developed cities.

I think this over-activity was stimulated by the fact that they needed to do something to fill in the empty spaces in their lives. Those gaps in their existence were put there by the Lord – eternity set in them according to Ecclesiastes 3:11. And the spaces within were to be filled with time and communication in a relationship to the Lord.

In other words, we were made to listen for God, for the Voice that seeks us and saves us. Without this connection to Him, things go wrong – tremendously wrong as we see when we reach Genesis 6.

Evil Imaginations, Violent Atmosphere

The world God had made “good” and “very good” degenerated into chaos.  What was the source of this turbulence? The imaginations of men’s hearts became only evil continually (see Genesis 6:5-6).

Fallen angels furthered the corruption at work through their relations involving the daughters of men. Many have debated over how these diabolic interactions were executed, but the activity did seemingly result in a category of giant humans (see Genesis 6:4).

Violence dominated the society. One of the first lyrical expressions in Genesis came from Lamech, a man who sang a boast to his wives about how he killed men who insulted him (see Genesis 4:23-24).

The corruptions upon earth were not limited to the human population either. All flesh had grown tainted and poisoned through the practices of the people. “And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:12).

All of this served to bring grief to the heart of the Lord. He lamented at what had brought this atmosphere to earth. He pondered over how to deal with this situation. We get a real taste of how much we are really made in His image from this account. God was heartbroken over how men used their freedom of choice to foster wreck and ruin.

The weight of sorrow over the devastation God oversaw prompted Him to consider a total obliteration. However, there was one man who found favor; one upon whom the Lord chose set His heart upon – Noah.

This man was graced by the Lord. He was there living with integrity amid the confusion and the catastrophe.

Noah’s ears were open. He listened to the Voice. He got a project, a world-saving mission. It came to him in great detail. And it took him 100 years to complete. Through building the Ark at the command of God, Noah served as an heir and preacher of righteousness (see Hebrews 11:7; 2 Peter 2:5).

The ‘Foolishness’ of God

The report of Noah and the great Flood is one of those Bible stories that stimulate reactions of scorn from the educated and sophisticated, those supposedly in the know. How could any Supreme Being unleash such waves of judgment upon His created ones? They say.

The real issue is a lack of comprehension about the nature of sin. There is a profound failure to see the decay and death that sin brings to us in our physique, our psyche, and our psychology. Our bodies, our souls, and our minds have been afflicted to various degrees because of the ways of transgression. All of this gets transmitted into the corporate elements through culture and atmosphere.

Paul wrote that the wisdom of the world sees the things of God as foolishness. Those who gather to themselves facts and data in a natural pursuit of understanding find the concept of divine wrath as abhorrent. You have, I am sure, heard people say that they cannot believe in the God of the Bible because they want a God of love, and no God of love would judge the world so harshly. They want a deity who lets us live and let live.

Love that has no anger at the wrong that can come about is not love at all. Love produces in us something that the psalmist celebrates as “perfect hatred” (see Psalm 139:22).

In His holiness and righteousness, God washed away the generation that had befouled the earth. It was an operation of healing to keep in motion the process of redemption and salvation.

Men refuse to listen to His Voice regarding the matter, it’s just that simple. They also turn to demanding explanations that they could never understand if they were told them.  “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Jesus confirmed the reality of the Flood and Noah. The reason I believe the Noah account is because Jesus said it was true.

The story also figured large in Jesus’ teaching about the Last Days and indicators of His return to earth. “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the Ark” (Matthew 24:37-38).

This begs a question for us: How bad could things really get here on earth? As bad as they got in the time of Noah.

Dwell on those words and it is easy to become discouraged.

Think on this instead: God found a man and His family and that’s all He needed to keep mankind alive and ready to flourish.

The Lord remains the God who so loves, the God who gave His very life. He took upon Himself the judgment of righteousness as the Son.

One Lamb — one spotless Lamb — offered upon one Cross won the victory. In spilling His innocent Blood, Christ accomplished what was accounted as the ransom paid for the sins of the whole world.

Yes, men’s hearts and imaginations are desperately wicked to this day. But the heart of God for our salvation remains ever true. Reconciliation, restoration, recreation – these define the purpose of the Almighty.

It is a purpose that shall not fail.

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For Starters, Substance Matters

The Beginning. It matters. It matters a lot.

Our origins are important. We have to talk about how things started. Where did we come from? How did we get here?

Genesis was a message to the people of Israel communicated through Moses. It was book of stories that showed us how the Lord got things going.

Consider this reality: the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had spent 400 plus years in Egypt. The latter portion of those years were years of slavery — hard labor afflicted upon them by the rule of Pharaoh. He feared this people because their numbers just kept growing. Their population was out of control.

The hard work they were made to do only served to increase their numbers. This terrified Pharaoh even more so he instituted an infanticide policy, every baby boy was to be tossed into the Nile River. Moses escaped this because of his clever-thinking mother and the compassion of one of Pharaoh’s daughters.

Most of us know the story of Moses. He met God and he was raised up by the Lord to speak for the release of the Israelites.

When Pharaoh refused and became stubborn in that refusal, the Lord sent a series of plagues, the last one being the death blow to all of the first born in Egypt.

That knockout plague forced the ruler’s hand. He sent Israel away.

Once through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, I am convinced that the people had questions. And Moses was the one with the answers.

The Lord spoke to him, first at the burning bush in the desert of Midian and later in a variety of ways as the deliverer and leader of the people.

What we have in Genesis is a series of reports that offer explanations for those with curious hearts. It traces the activity of God in Creation as a whole and then His purpose in setting in motion His plan of Redemption.

Definition of the Source

The words at the start of Genesis must be considered in the light of the plagues God leveled upon Egypt. Every plague was directed toward an idol embraced and worshipped amid the culture of that empire.

The group that left Egypt was a “mixed multitude.” Among the throng of the delivered people, were those who still carried an affinity for the gods of the land they just left, a land now in ruins because of the things that God brought against it.

Genesis gives definition. The text tells us that God is the Source of all things. His commandment is to worship Him and Him alone and not the things. By His good pleasure He determined to create all that we know through the expression of His Wisdom.

We find this element to the sequence of Creation in Proverbs 8. There we read that Wisdom was with God and in God before the whole process was set in motion.

And how did He set Creation in motion? With the sound of His Voice. He spoke and there was Light. He proceeded to establish realms of existence —the heavens, the sky, the seas, and the land. He formed the frames of reference and then filled those frames.

Stars and planets and suns filled the heavens. The fowl were sent into the skies. Fish and whales and eels and even something known as Leviathan were introduced to the seas.

Last came the land, which brought forth vegetation in the form of plants and trees and fruit. Also set upon the land were animals and creeping things — insects.

All of these things possessed substance and so we must take substance to be sacred. The material elements of Creation were declared by God to be good and very good, especially when it came to Man.

Like the rest of Creation, Man was made to be filled. Genesis explains that Man was formed from the dust of earth. His existence began materially before it was animated; that is, quickened and made alive.

Once fashioned in the design of the Lord as we read in Psalm 139, God breathed into Man and Man became a living soul. To quote another line from Proverbs, He chose to create and enjoy what He formed to be His dwelling places – “Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:31). He made Man to contain something of Himself.

This is a truth about every human being if we are to believe the Bible record. Imagine what life in this world would be like if every one of us really accepted and related to each other on the basis of this reality. God is in me and He is also in every one of my neighbors, even the ones who choose to operate as enemies toward me and Him.

Substance and Spirit

We must recognize the importance of the created pattern and order. Man first had substance; he was material before he was spiritual.

This distinction is no small thing. What we are on the outside mattered very much to the Lord.

It mattered so much that God the Son incarnated Himself in the material of humanity. He entered into a life of dust. God took our substance. He lived His life along all of its lines. He did so in every respect. Whenever challenged to operate as more than a man, He rebuked that challenge with Word, with Wisdom, with an understanding of how His sacrifice of Himself had to be one defined by perfect, innocent humanity.

He never ceased being God, but He allowed His deity to face this world and its cosmically charged atmosphere in every detail. He did it without exercising supernatural prerogatives in ways that would aid His humanity. He spoke to the forces that opposed Him. The Word carried the force of nature that was behind it the nature of the Creator. He did touch those in need and brought healing. Again, things of substance often figured in the equations — mud, spit, thread, water.

There’s a reason why substance and materiality are questioned and attacked. It is because Satan possesses neither of these things. There’s nothing solid to him or to the air of which he coordinates and agitates. He is all soul — mind, will, emotions. He fosters idols and figures in deceived imaginations to gain himself a representation. He can stimulate, but he cannot create. He may only use what’s left open to him.

We meet the devil in Genesis 3 as the wily one employing the shape of a subtle snake. He works craftily to create a fog in the mind of the woman. He doesn’t argue, rather he fashions an atmosphere of doubt and distrust.

Other-ness and One-ness

Let us get back to the first words: In the beginning, God. He is, He was, He always will be. From everlasting to everlasting, He is the Lord. Read through these opening chapters of the Bible and see that He saw all that He created as good and very good.

What was not good? The missing complement to Adam. The man needed an Other to relate to. Without this Other, he was deficient in regard the image of God.

“Let us, make man in our image.” This was the Lord’s declaration. The pronouns “us” and “our” reveal the nature of God in His Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Lord is One and His One-ness is expressed in the midst of His Other-ness. Who the Lord is is a mystery far beyond our understanding. In Genesis, we read of the sense of relationship. The Hebrew verbs indicate that the Persons of the Lord have been involved in something of an eternal dance.

Once Man was made, he needed a dance partner. And so the Lord took something from the Man and fashioned Woman. She was his Other. She complemented him – body, soul, and spirit. The two were designed to become one flesh and to be fruitful and multiply.

Man now had a neighbor he could love as he loved himself. More than a neighbor, he had a sister and a spouse.

All was glorious. All was right. All was finished. All was very good.

And so the Lord rested.

This last point is important because the first hearers of these words had never known rest. As slaves, they were worked and worked and worked to death.

These freed people had to learn faith and truth in the work and power of God. They had to choose to believe and rest in the Lord’s loving character.

Herein is the application for us. We were made by God and for God, according to His pleasure. He freely gave us all things and He freely gave us responsibility. We may choose and He expresses His love and care in the hope that we choose Him and His ways and not our own ways.

The Lord put His breath in us and as we breathe we say His Name – YAHWEH. This brings Him glory.

This is what we were made for.

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Remember and Pay Attention to You

In Luke 17, Jesus provides some indicators about how things will be as His time to return draws near. With this in mind, the Savior starts with a significant instruction to His disciples: “Pay attention to yourselves!” (Luke 17:3).

The chapter begins with Christ saying that you can expect offenses and temptations. There are little ones about; these are new and immature believers, those trying to get on their feet. These ones are vulnerable. Those who cause them to stumble will not get away with what they do.

The Lord has His ways of dealing with those who do harm. He will be far more severe and complete than anything we might cobble together along the lines of human rationale in regard to retribution. His ways are much different than ours, so much higher is He, above all powers and kingdoms. 

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Aren’t we all in His hands? 

It is so interesting to me that we attempt to fashion our own brands of vengeance. It reveals how little we know about God and the depth and breadth of His power, knowledge, and mercy. 

Yes, mercy. God weighs things according to His ultimate aim to draw all men unto Him. Anyone who falls into the hands of the Lord will feel the weight of His judgment, a weight that will take him to the bottom and even beneath it. 

Penetrating Work

We can see the nature of God and His penetrating work upon hearts in the story of Joseph that we can read in Genesis, chapters 37-50. In envy, the brothers plotted to do away with Joseph. At first, murder was on their minds, but they stopped short of killing him and instead chose to sell their brother into slavery. 

Years later, these very brothers, seeking to find food during a severe famine, bowed low before Joseph who had been raised up as a ruler in Egypt, a great and powerful empire at the time. The exchange between the distraught brothers shows just how the memory of their actions against Joseph had affected them.

Their hearts were tormented and had been for some time. What they had done to Joseph they did mean for evil. God, however, redeemed it for good to save them alive and to make way for their future as the fathers of the chosen nation anointed to witness to the world of the true Lord of all Creation. 

Woe to those by whom offenses come — not because of what human justice can manufacture, but because of what the Lord can and does do. This is not to diminish the effects that wrongdoing has on people. Still, we have to reckon on His Word as it declares: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sows that he shall also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

“Pay attention to yourselves!” That’s our business, Jesus taught. 

Reasonable Service

I am really more than I can handle on my own. I need to lose my life in order to really gain it. I must give it to God and then, by His Spirit, all things are worked together. 

Psalm 119:109 says that our souls are continually in our hands. Who I am and what I am to become is all related to how I walk with Him. 

Later in Luke 17, Jesus spoke of servants simply doing what is required of them as employees. The boss doesn’t serve them, they serve the boss and then they are permitted to do their own things. 

What it is that God requires is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, according to Micah 6:8. Do what you’re supposed to do. This is reasonable service, Jesus illustrated with His sentences. 

Seek first the Kingdom. Love God and your neighbor. Forgive, as He has forgiven you. Jesus said if someone wrongs you the same way seven times in a day and seeks forgiveness, you are to forgive. Proceed with humility in the understanding of just how prone to failure you are in your own right. 

The Seed of Faith

The disciples were stunned. They said that this would require something of a major faith boost. 

Jesus replied that they were all wrong about the nature of faith. Faith, He said, is something of quality rather than quantity. Just a tiny seed of true faith can root out any obstacle that gets between us and God.

Real faith is about the object it is set upon. We look to Jesus and He authors and completes our faith (see Hebrews 12:2). He is the source of our faith and by Him we are enabled to be just and merciful and forgiving. 

The next passages in Luke 17 point out just how casual and familiar we can be with the Lord. 

A group of 10 lepers called to the Savior: “Mercy, Lord, have mercy.” They wanted to be made clean and disease-free. He shouted back a simple instruction: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As they went, they were cleansed (Luke 17:17-18). 

Only one, however, among the healed rendered the Healer any honor. This one, a Samaritan at that, glorified God as he came and fell on his face before Jesus.

The Lord wondered aloud “Where are the nine?” Concern must have come over Him for the days to come. Who will reveal thanksgiving and honor unto God? 

The Flood and the Fire

Jesus next explained the character of the end days. The world will be wasted and wasting away. The atmosphere will be as it was in the days of Noah and Lot. 

Noah found grace and got an assignment from God. For more than 100 years, he fashioned an ark, a large vessel of wood to carry one family and a host of creatures through the Flood of judgment. His work and his witness of righteousness went ignored. People did as they did, practicing and imagining all manner of evil as they ate and drank and married. 

And then the rain began to fall. 

In Sodom, Lot lived a vexed and twisted existence. His faith was small, though real. He possessed enough discernment to recognize angels who came to the city. The people around Lot went about their business as usual. The arrival of the newcomers stirred the evil passions in them. A crowd rushed to Lot, seeking to abuse the messengers sheltered in his home. 

And then fire and brimstone fell from the sky. 

Lot and his daughters escaped to safety. His wife? She turned back toward Sodom and became a pillar of salt. She was so attached to the life she had in Sodom that she couldn’t bear to leave it behind. 

“Remember Lot’s wife.” This was Jesus’ word of warning. Perhaps He was addressing Judas in a way. By appearances, some can seem close to God. But when judgment arrives all hearts are revealed. 

The Son of God was right there. He represented the Kingdom of God come among them. Few chose Him. They failed to see the reality of His redemption. He suffered and was rejected by that generation. 

He offered His Body on the Cross. The religious and political leaders of the time – the vultures – circled around Jesus and put Him to death. He gave His life to that dark moment. (See Luke 17:37.)

Now He asks us to seek Him and surrender our lives to the purposes of the Kingdom. It’s not something everyone will choose to do, and the return of Christ will reveal this clearly. 

This one and that one and that one will be taken into the Lord’s reign, others will be left out. Why? Because they held fast to the life in the world that will face its judgment. 

What about us? What choices will we make? 

In Jesus, we have a forever life, an eternal life, a fulfilled life. Let us choose to see that life every morning and every evening. Put trust in Christ and His Truth and He shall bless and keep you.

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Love God. Love Others. Love You

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Who is my neighbor?”

These questions came from an expert in the Law of Moses.  He had been having a conversation with Jesus. In the account that we read in Luke 10, this man put forth these questions in order to tempt or test the Savior.

To the first question about gaining eternal life, Jesus responded with a question of His own: “What do you read in the Law?”

The response of the lawyer, taken from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:5, was this:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus was in agreement with his answer. He told the man to do these things and get the kingdom life. All the ordinances, some 613 of them in the writings attributed to Moses, were concentrated in these two commands.

In the gospels of Mark and Matthew, the Lord categorized these two instructions as the greatest of all the commandments. The apostle Paul affirmed this opinion in his letter to the Romans, telling his readers that all of the Law rests on love:  “…  You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, all are  summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:9-10).

Ah, but this most religious man sought an out, a work-around. That is the point of his follow-up question:  “Who is my neighbor?”

Isn’t that so like us?  We demand clarification in order to escape a matter of simple obedience.

The answer of Jesus was direct. Love. Love. Love.

Love your Lord and in so loving Him — heart, soul, strength, and mind — you discover true love for yourself.

Dive into this commitment to Him, purpose to seek first His Kingdom, and you see who you are and what you were made for – to glorify God and enjoy Him. The Westminster Catechism, a Puritan-influenced teaching guide for Christian living, begins this way:  “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy Him forever.”

You love God. You love you. You love others.

Once you’ve learned to love yourself as God loves you, only then will you understand the way to loving your neighbor.

A Story of Love

This lawyer made an attempt to stir up a theological debate. He wanted to drag Jesus into the weeds of analysis.

The nature of the religion expressed among the Jewish people at that time was lost in the debates of details, especially in the area of the Sabbath. Simply, the scholars and teachers of the Law, spent a whole lot of work trying to define what it really means not to work, to rest.

The most respected rabbis of the ages taught and wrote thousands of opinions on the matter. Leviticus states in a number of places that Sabbath means just this:  no labor was to be done either by man or beast.

These knowledgeable ones directed their hearts, souls, strengths, and minds into empty pursuits. A product of the educational dynamic of his day, it should not surprise us that this lawyer wanted to enter into a learned discussion on neighborliness.

The Savior refused to enter the realm of abstraction. Jesus had thanked the Father for the ones who followed Him with simple faith:  “… I thank You Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight” (Luke 10:21).

“Who is my neighbor?”

There would be no doctrinal dissertation coming from the Son regarding the question. Instead, He addressed the matter as the Lord always seems to address most high things.

He told a story.

And this story is one the whole world has come to know very well as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Reference is made to these words practically every time someone makes news by doing an honorable thing in helping someone in need.

You know how Jesus told it. A man was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho when he got ambushed by thieves. He was left naked and half-dead by the side of the road. Two religiously minded men – a priest and a Levite, men with whom the lawyer would have been well acquainted – passed by, saw the man in need, but chose to cross the street and leave him lying there.

“A certain Samaritan” saw the man and had compassion. He dressed his wounds with oil and wine; he transported the man to an inn, cared for him, and also made arrangements for his further treatment. The finishing touch was this question posed to the lawyer and to all who heard:  “Which now of these three do you think was a neighbor unto the one who fell among the thieves?”

The lawyer was caught. Jesus had flipped the script on him. He had to admit that the Samaritan who showed mercy was the real hero in the story.

“Go and do likewise,” Jesus said to him. In essence, the lawyer was told this:

Be like the Samaritan.

Sounds like a great slogan to slap on a T-shirt or bumper sticker doesn’t it?

The Right Question

The lawyer had been asking the wrong question all along.  The real question is this one, and we must ask it of ourselves, “Am I a neighbor?”

The words spoken during this encounter exposed how wrong our hearts can be. And when the heart is disordered the effects are felt all over us.

Samaritans were ostracized by those who counted themselves true Israelites. These groups were literally neighbors — people living side-by-side under the auspices of the Roman Empire. There was racial and social animus throughout the region. Such prejudice in the heart leads to infected souls, hindered strength, and dark, cloudy thinking.

This lawyer likely possessed an amazing mind. He surely exercised much strength in studying the pages of the Scriptures. He took pride in his knowledge, and it shaped his identity.

What of his heart? What was inside of it? Was it really given to the worship of the Lord and toward bringing glory to Him?

These are questions all of us have to wrestle with. There’s a whole atmosphere in our world that assaults our attempts to live for God.

Am I a neighbor? A holy neighbor like the Samaritan? I want to be like the man in Jesus’ story. I can’t make myself like the Samaritan, however, with good thoughts and deeds.

What I need is love from the Lord. I have to let God love me and recognize the simple fact of the matter. That is, He loves me today and every day.

If His love captivates my heart, then I will see as He sees. Anyone around me then becomes my neighbor.

And I may not like some of the neighbors I know and see. Still, there is a love from above that can flow through me and out of me. I can help the wounded and show God’s compassion, because I have been loved and cared for by Him.

Love God. Love you. Love others.

Go and do this.

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Great Harvest, Few Laborers

Jesus refused to allow His followers to sit idle, even after they’d stumbled. There was work to do, and He commissioned them to do it. He sent out more than 70 disciples as we read at the opening portion of Luke 10.

This was done even after what we read in Luke 9. The Savior chided His chosen band for their faithlessness and their perversity as it related to the boy under demonic siege. He rebuked them for misguided attempts to demonstrate their privileges and authority regarding an outsider proclaiming Jesus’ Name and for their agitated call for a discourteous town to burn.

And yet these people were the Son’s main messengers. They delivered His invitation to life eternal and worked wonders as He empowered them.

This is what He had to work with. Did He need these guys? As the Lord Almighty, Maker of the heavens and the earth, He needed nothing. Right? This seems like a logical conclusion at which to arrive.

Yet I am convinced it’s the wrong conclusion.

There’s something deeper and wider at work, a mystery that brings us to both wonder and bewilderment. People had to be included in the work.

The Lord positioned Himself to be in need, in need of us, as strange as that sounds.

He did so because of the essence and necessity of love and loving. Minus the freedom of choice and the ability to respond, relationships exist under the forces of command and control. These things form all other rules of engagement related to religion.

Yahweh had something else in mind. He desired lives devoted to fellowship and exchange. Give and take was to characterize the expression of His life set loose in people.

The Lord instilled this reality in His realm through the nature of reproduction. Species were made diverse — two dimensions, the male and the female, were crafted to come together so that there would be more, more, more. In the lower forms of life, this procreation is made to happen via instinct. This was by design, and because such operations continue according to that design, there exists an ever-present testimony to the hand of God at work in our world.

Free to Agree or Disagree

The Lord gifted those beings situated higher in His created order with something more. That is, the ability to think, to reason, and to respond. The response mechanism rooted in real liberty included the capacity for refusal.

Yes, I have to say that God made space for agreement and also for disagreement.

These higher ones possess a liberty given according to the Creator’s good pleasure. Simply put, God wanted angels and humans to choose Him. Rather than pressurize them into conformity, He designed these created ones with a sense of self, and a spirit as part of their essence.

Among the angelic host, there was freedom. Lucifer occupied an amazing and most powerful position as an anointed cherub welcomed at the mountain of the Most High. He chose to seek an enhancement of his position. He become “I” centered as iniquity brewed within him. He stirred a rebellion that garnered a third of the host to his side. He could and he did enter into an attitude of anti-love. And he led others in it. He refused to live in contentment and fell like lightning from heaven as the father of lies and became a most murderous power.

Liberty is what love is all about. God is love, and love cannot flow if it is not exercised in freedom. Without freedom, there’s no exchange going on at all. Without freedom, all initiation is unidirectional and all reaction is preexistent and programmatic. It is domination, not relationship.

Can there be true joy in this manner of arrangement? Not really.

And so when it comes to the communication pattern for the spread of the Gospel, Jesus uses those who choose to draw near to Him.

Could He have had it any other way? I think not. Love is the issue and love involves the Lover and His beloved. Split that latter word into two — be loved. The Lord made it a point to use those who allowed themselves to “be loved.”

Still in the Work

As we have seen reading through Luke, this reality made for some messy moments. Yes, there were high points for sure, but the beauty of the Bible is that it tells the straight, unvarnished stories of a number of people.

We get words about David on how by faith and in the Name of the Lord, he slung a stone that put the giant on his face. We also get words about how this very same hero took a rooftop walk and wound up stealing a man’s wife for himself with a disastrous fall into sin.

“The harvest truly is great.” Jesus declared this. Nothing can change that. There are always going to be those in need of the Gospel.

“The laborers are few.” This is the other reality. God works with what He’s got.

These weak and often selfish followers were His workforce. They agreed with the Truth of His Person. He knew this and understood perfectly. Their faith lacked luster for sure, the evidence of this is there for us to read. The maturity process was going to be a bumpy one — both for the truly human Son and for His followers.

These disciples experienced defeat, but the Lord would not bench them. The harvest remained. The reapers were needed. Despite their still developing capacities, Jesus got them back on the field.

Go and tell the cities and towns that the Son has come, they were instructed. Announce the Peace with God that is now available. Some will receive this Peace, others will not.

Those sent out were to make themselves at home with those who received the Message. Eat and drink, share the table with such as these. Believers become family at once, do they not? Heal the sick. Announce the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

The Lord’s Day Shall Come

Not all doors will open, Jesus warned. Rejection was nothing new to Him. They were not to take this personally. Rather, the disciples were told to move along from those who refused to listen. Wipe away the dust of such places. Their day of judgment will come just as it came to Sodom.

Sodom did get a witness, albeit a rather weak one in Lot, the nephew of Abraham. Let’s not forget that Lot and his family were related to the one called the father of faith and the friend of the Most High.

Lot may have struggled to project his faith to the townspeople, and to his family. Still,  the fires from heaven fell upon the immoral scoffers of Sodom as Lot and his daughters and wife were pulled clear of the devastation.

Sure, the Genesis account does reveal Lot’s spirituality as something less than fervent. However, Peter writes of this man as a righteous one who was “vexed” over the wickedness that he saw around him (see 2 Peter 2:7-8). Lot’s flickering faith was alive enough so that he recognized heaven’s messengers when they came to visit the city and rescue him.

Peter understood better than most the trials of our faith. He faltered more than a few times. He denied the Lord, and even punctuated the last denial with a curse. This disciple was the perfect writer to speak of Lot under the terms of the finished work of Christ. He understood the faithfulness of the love of God and according to this love he spoke of Lot.

Jesus told His laborers just enough about the judgment to come. He told them things to embolden them and to comfort them.

Those who turn their backs on the Message shall face God. The Day of the Lord will come — it will arrive suddenly as an amazing interruption to a world that snoozes passively under the blanket of the wicked one.

The harvest is here and now. We are the laborers Jesus seeks to use in the fields. Maybe we don’t have much going for us on the surface. But we have Him. He loves us and we love Him. We choose with purpose to hear Him and let others see Him at work through us.

Psalm 37:4 gives us the secret: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Seek contentment. And the best way to find contentment is to fill our minds with the thoughts from God’s Word and our hearts with the love that the Holy Spirit gives.

Rejoice in the Lord, and again we say rejoice.

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Taking His Shine

Jesus invited three of His Apostles – Peter, James, and John – to take a climb with Him. Up the mountain, they went to a place where the Savior gave Himself to prayer.

Seems to me this would have been a time when I would want to keep my eyes wide open. I mean these guys had just gotten confirmation of the reality of Jesus. Peter was the one who got the revelation that this Leader of theirs was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (see Matthew 16:16). With this fresh knowledge, we would expect a greater sense of awareness and attention to detail in the following of Him.

Again, we are allowed to see that these followers of Jesus were all too human. Sleep overcame these disciples. They napped almost to the point of missing a most remarkable episode that involved not just the Son, but two of the great faith heroes of Israel.

Jesus’ face began to glow and “His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them” (Luke 9:29). Next to Him, stood Moses and Elijah, who were also arrayed gloriously.

They had come to talk of the Savior’s road to the Cross through Jerusalem. These two men had been through tortuous times with the people of God.

God and Discipline

For Moses, this moment on the mountain had to be most welcome and significant. Remember, he failed to heed the command of God at the rock that gave water in Numbers 20. The Lord told Moses to speak to the rock in order to produce the water needed for the huge congregation that was trekking through the wilderness.

Instead, Moses raised his staff and hammered the rock – twice. God sent the water, but He also chastised His leaders:  “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not believe in Me, to uphold Me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them’” (Numbers 20:12).

Later, in Deuteronomy 3, we read of how Moses pleaded with the Lord to relent and allow him to finish his course and enter the Promised Land. He wrote of how he had weathered 40 years with this stiff-necked, stubborn multitude. “Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan. …,” Moses said.

The Lord was having none of it. “… And the Lord said to me, ‘Enough from you; do not speak to Me of this matter again.’ Go up to the top of Pisgah … and look at it with your eyes …” (see Deuteronomy 3:23-28 for the whole story).

Moses was basically told to shut up about it. This says something to us about God and the leaders He chooses. These people are anointed for their roles in the purposes of the Lord. He deals with them in His way. Yes, these leaders are worthy of honor. They share things that God has given them to share.  But let us never lose sight of this fact – all leaders are also responsible and accountable.

It is important to keep this Moses story in mind when a leader may cause us pain. Our temptation in such a situation is to start spreading the news and airing our grievances for everyone to hear. I don’t want to dismiss any hurt that someone may feel. It’s real and it’s tragic and it’s wrong. Still, God is in control and His vengeance goes deeper and farther than anything we could manufacture.

If you find yourself in such a wounded state, I pray that the God of all mercy will hear and comfort and shed His love abroad in you so that you live in the freedom of forgiveness. And this will likely take some time, especially if the offense is especially grievous. I expect you may express some truly angry feelings even toward the Lord Himself. Fear not. He will love you still and will allow you to vent and complain for as long as is necessary. See Psalm 13 for a brief example.

Made for Glory

Back to the mountain with Jesus – in Luke 9 and also in the accounts related in the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Moses has been allowed to set foot in Israel. He is aglow in the Land of Promise that he once pointed the multitude toward after their deliverance from Egypt.

This manner of glory was not new for Moses, as we can read in Exodus 34. Moses’ face shined after he came down from meeting with the Lord on Mount Sinai. The sight of him brought terror to the people. He veiled his face so that they could come near him.

Our human bodies were designed for glory it seems. Jesus, along with Moses and Elijah, were making this clear. Made in the image of God, we were to acquire this clothing as we walked and talked with Him. Sadly, this privilege was forfeited when Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

This moment of transfiguration represented an outward display of the holy heart of the Son. It burst forth on that moment because the revelation of His Person had been spoken forth by a man chosen to follow Him.

And so I think God always intended His glory in us to be something that works from the inside out. In fact, the word “hallelujah” means to “flash forth light for God.” As our hearts are filled with His Spirit, we reveal more and more of His Light.

This was true of Stephen, as he spoke of Christ just before His stoning. Those there described Stephen’s face as having the appearance as that of an angel (see Acts 6:15).

Glory, we are destined for it. We shall see Christ one day and we shall be like Him, as it says in 1 John 3:2:  “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Peter blurted out an idea, a most religious idea that involved erecting something of a shrine, a site for pilgrimages. Shrines were common to the region where they were at the time. “’Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said” (Luke 9:33).

Peter had spoken of the identity of Jesus under the influence of the Lord. He also tried to rebuke Jesus for mentioning His destiny of death upon the Cross. To that outburst, Jesus turned from Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan!” Now, this rambunctious Apostle seemed to suggest another path for the Son to gain the fame and renown due Him.

Just then, the cloud of The Presence of the Lord settled upon the mountain and engulfed the group.

“And a Voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’And when the Voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. …” (Luke 9:35-36).

Looking Ahead

When all was said and done, the Apostles were instructed to keep silent about it. This top of the mountain experience would have to be kept to themselves until after the Resurrection. Jesus wasn’t interested in creating a public relations or promotional storm. He worked deliberately in ways He often kept hidden.

Only true hearts are welcome in His Kingdom. Only true hearts really heard what He had to say and what was said about Him.

And true hearts given to Him can imagine what’s ahead. Jesus gave these three guys a taste and a sight of what our eternal existence will be like.

The here and the now are important. But we can better serve the present with a healthy view of the future.

Christ is alive, and He’s alive with a body that is perfect and redeemed, a body that shall bear the Light of God, a body that can stand in the full and forever cloud of His Presence.

The Apostles saw what they could be like in the transfiguration of Jesus. This is hope. Believe it and look to that day.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the NEXT.” In other words, those who most think of things to come are the most useful and important in the present.

Jesus came, and Jesus is coming. Think on this. And hear Him. Know that we shall be like Him, all glorious and majestic, as His prized people.

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The Great Miracle of Forgiveness

She crashed the dinner party, just to get to Jesus. It was an embarrassing moment for the religious man who’d extended the invitation to the Son.

Yes, Jesus chose to eat at the house of Simon, a Pharisee, even though He had pronounced woes upon these religious ones. He was more than the friend to publicans and sinners. He also sought to be the friend of those who despised publicans and sinners. The Son was the friend to men such as this man, men who prided themselves on their right living and rigid law-keeping.

These, too, needed the saving grace of God. Jesus did say that He would be lifted up on the Cross to draw all men unto Him and to the Father through Him. All means all. Those who fail to see themselves as sinners are still trapped in their sin and in need of redemption, even though they are blind to their desperate state.

What to do about her? The Pharisee had to wonder. She was a woman known for her life on the streets of town.

Jesus had just taken His seat and there she was. And what she was doing only made matters more uncomfortable for the host Pharisee and his distinguished company. I must say for myself that the scene would be disconcerting to just about anyone who had just sat down to take a meal.

Something had moved this woman to tears, and she let those tears fall on the feet of Jesus. She carried no towel with which to dry His feet so she used her hair. She let loose her locks and they fell upon His toes. This is how she wiped them clean.

She proceeded to a most public display of affection by kissing those feet. Her finishing touch was to pour out on Him an expensive flask of fragrant oil. If, as some think, this woman was a prostitute, this ointment likely was a tool of her trade as a sex worker. In anointing His feet with this, she declared that she was turning away from her line of employment in coming to Christ.

Just before this encounter, Jesus gave an invitation of His own, one we can read in Matthew 11:28-30:  “Come unto Me, all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

She heard this and answered His call to repentance.

Tale of Two Sinners

What we really read at the conclusion of Luke 7 is a tale of two sinners. One had become very much aware of her need for forgiveness and mercy; the other, as far as we can tell, remained restless and confused at the power and propriety of Jesus.

First, consider the inappropriateness of a woman – any woman – openly lavishing such endearment on a man – any man — in plain sight. Jesus had status in the community. He had gained a measure of respect as a Rabbi, and Simon was contemptuous that Jesus did not move away from her, nor did He move to stop her. “… [Simon] said to himself, ‘If this Man were a Prophet, He would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner’” (Luke 7:39).

Jesus would reveal just how much of a Prophet He was. He did know this woman and her ways. He also knew Simon and his thoughts. He exposed what was going on in the Pharisee’s head. He also took issue with his manner of decorum.

This moment was one of supposed hospitality, but Simon treated the guest of honor rather shabbily by the standards of the day. Jesus noted what went missing from his welcome.

The Son got no kiss of greeting. No water was provided for His feet. No oil was offered for His head. All of these would have been standard courtesies extended to a visitor.

Simon’s casual treatment of Jesus was a matter of heart. He possessed a curiosity. Perhaps, this whole setup was to be just a little meet-and-greet session, a get-know-you time. On another level, maybe this was part of the Pharisees’ investigation of Jesus. The Son was known and followed and this made the religious establishment anxious and envious.

Jesus knew Simon better than he knew himself. He was blinded to his true need and to the Truth about the Messiah sitting before him.

Jesus offered a brief parable about two debtors and their responses to the cancellations of what they owed. The one who owed much more was the more grateful one, as Simon pointed out.

Notice, both people in the story had debts they could not pay. The woman and Simon were in the same condition – each needed the forgiveness that comes from above through the Son.

It was most clear to the woman and so she seized the opportunity to express gratefulness. Her heart overflowed for the love and grace she had sensed from the Savior. None of the disfavoring glances were going to hinder her.

Who would squelch such joy? Certainly not Jesus.

This was a revelation. A life made right and clean was rejoicing before the One who set her free.

How long had she labored enslaved to her sinful lifestyle? Finally at peace, she let herself go to extremes in her thanksgiving, regardless of those present.

Set Free and Grateful

Forgiveness; it is the greatest miracle of them all. The result of it was there for all to see in the midst of a “holy” man’s house.

This chapter, Luke 7, began with a powerful turn of events. A Roman centurion, a Gentile magistrate, sought healing for the servant boy whom he loved. And Jesus marveled at his faith, his understanding, and the recognition of the Son’s power and authority.

With His Word, Jesus made that boy well at the request of a soldier.

With His Word, the Son next raised a widow’s only son from the dead and out of his coffin.

With His Word, Jesus brought this woman to Himself and His wholeness; He made her new and alive again.

Let he who has ears, hear and hear well. May we hear and believe.

Simon thought he was doing Jesus a favor with a seat at his table. Instead, it was Jesus who offered this Pharisee the greatest invitation of all, the invitation to be free from his debt, small as it may seem to him.

Forgiveness was there for the taking. Pardon must be received. Mercy extended must be mercy accepted.

This woman got the message. Did Simon get it, too? That remains a mystery. We are not told whether his unbelief was helped at all by what happened here.

Jesus brought the message of salvation home to this man.

And He brings it home to us, over and over. We are forgiven and free. Let us weep before Him. Let us pour out praises to Him.

Our faith saved us. May we go in peace.

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Remembering Brooks

There was a time when Brooks Robinson was on my mind almost daily.

Brooks and Johnny. Robinson and Unitas. These were the true giants of our Baltimore Sports scene, the clutch-hitting, smooth-fielding Orioles third baseman and the gritty champion quarterback of the Colts.

With Brooks’ passing yesterday, they are both gone from us. (Unitas died in 2002.)

I’d be remiss not to reminisce for Brooks made me better at my job.

I took regular shifts in the layout chair on the Baltimore Sun Sports desk for more than 10 years. The duties were to draw up the pages, assigning space and headline orders for all the stories and photos fit to print for the paper to be published for the next morning.

It would be on me to rip up the section if necessary. That is, I had to make adjustments should there come any late-breaking news and this did happen – a lot – a near no-hitter by Mussina, a 60-point game from Michael Jordan, a Princess dying in Paris. Yes, the news cycle ran fast and furious and it affected the whole publication.

So as I started my work night and as I organized things, I learned to pose this question to myself, “What would we do if Brooks Robinson died on deadline?”

And so I got into the practice of making two outlines for every section — just in case. At a recent reunion of our Sun Sports Dept team, someone reminded me that I always let the rest of the desk know this: “I have a plan.” I learned that this was something of a comfort to my old colleagues.

“Bible Steve” — my nickname because there were so many Steves on the staff – “would know what to do,” they said. And I have to say that I did.

We made things work and the paper got out on time every single time. I still take pride in the fabulous streaks we had at making deadline.

We made the plays like Brooks made the plays. The routine ones and the tough ones, too.

We were a solid, dependable team of clutch performers at Sun Sports. We also liked each other and got along, even when things got very, very heavy. See 9/11/2001.

In reading about Brooks from a number of stories posted in the past 24 hours I learned something I never knew. There were 10 times when Brooks drove in the only run in a 1-0 Orioles victory for he played for no one else. This is a major-league best statistic as pointed out by ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, a writer who covered the O’s for the Sun years ago.

And what was the score last night in the Orioles’ win over the Nationals – 1-0. The lone run provided by Gunnar Henderson, a shortstop/third baseman for the present team. To me, this represents an incidental, but appropriate honor for one of the most honorable athletes who has ever lived. It is sad that Brooks will miss watching the Orioles in the playoffs next month.

Brooks was so much fun to watch on the field and a real gentleman off of it. I still recall him taking time to visit with my brother’s little league team before a game at Memorial Stadium. I got to go because my dad was the coach. He met every autograph request before hurrying out to take his spot at third. He told the kids to practice well and play hard and remember that baseball’s just a game.

Thanks Brooks, we will miss you, your style and way, and your clarity. Here’s to No. 5.

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Think Joy

I want to talk about Paul, a man who wrote a good deal of what we know as the New Testament in our Bibles. From this man’s mind and heart came pictures, great and eternal illustrations, of how we are to see Christ and His Church.

From this early missionary, pastor and teacher, we learn to view Jesus as the Head of the Church and of us, as members of His Body active and at work in this world. We learn many things from Paul:  the necessity of spiritual armor for the warfare, the power of love, and the importance of prayer, just to name a few.

A careful look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians reveals in its tone, a collection of words that is relevant to us today. His writing points us to joy as a practice of life.

Paul was a man who underwent a radical change in his point of view about Jesus. He was not one of the Apostles who walked and talked with Christ during His public ministry on earth. For sure, he came to know of the Man from Nazareth and of the people who had been transformed by the Gospel.

He grew up in the university city of Tarsus, situated in the southeastern part of what is now Turkey. There, he became acquainted with both Greek thought and Roman methods. Added to his Hebrew identity and his connection to the true God, these things made Paul one of the truly unique people in all of history.

At some point, Paul became an unyielding, orthodox follower of the ways of the Law as it was given from God to Moses. He would come to identify himself as a “Pharisee of the Pharisees.” He committed himself to strict rabbinic school led by Gamaliel and entered into a life devoted to the restoration of Israel as a Kingdom and world power with the Temple as its religious center.

Encountering Jesus

This man is introduced to us in Acts 7, a chapter that describes the stoning of Stephen, one of the original church deacons. Stephen, a Jewish believer in Christ, delivered a stinging rebuke to those whose hard hearts kept them from seeing the reality of Jesus as the promised Messiah. Stephen admonished them for they had always resisted the Spirit and ignored the message of the Lord whether the word came from Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or any other spokesmen sent to them.

Stephen’s sermon fueled rage that sparked a mob to seize and beat him. As the attackers gathered and began to hurl rocks, their cloaks were laid at the feet of Paul.

He watched Stephen sink to the dust. He no doubt also heard Stephen as he testified to seeing an open Heaven complete with Jesus standing at the right hand of Glory, ready to welcome His besieged, battered saint. This faithful deacon punctuated his departure with a word of prayer:  “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:60).

Did Paul ever forget that scene? I don’t think so.

For a season, he became one of the chief agents of persecution toward Christians as their movement gained a foothold during the late 30s and 40s of the first century AD. He poured all of his restlessness and agitation into stamping out the spread of the Message of Jesus. He engaged in the forceful suppression of the Way. He delivered believers of Jesus over to jail, scourging, and even to execution.

Then, Heaven opened to Paul. Down came the Light from above. He encountered Jesus en route to Damascus. With him, he carried arrest warrants for any Jew who had come to follow the Savior.

Christ spoke:  “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? … I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9). What were those goads that jabbed at Paul? I am convinced that they were memories of Stephen and how he perished with a prayer for his enemies and killers.

From this moment forward, Paul’s passion for God was turned toward telling everyone about Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

A Letter of Love and Joy

One of the stops on his missionary journey was Philippi. In Acts 16, Luke recorded how Paul conducted a “beach reach” and discovered a women’s prayer group that included Lydia, a seller of purple, a businesswoman of some means since purple cloth was costly and much desired among the wealthy in Roman society.

Lydia became a believer in Jesus and a supporter of the work of Paul at once. She pressed him to start meetings in her home, and this group grew into the central church in the city.

While Paul was imprisoned, awaiting a hearing before Nero, the Caesar of the Empire, he wrote his Song of Solomon to the saints at Philippi. This, in my mind, is a love letter of the best kind.

The syntax in these sentences is free, wild, and loose. Paul’s giddiness overflows in the fashion of the Bridegroom who gushed “Behold, you are fair, my love; behold, you are all fair. …” (Song 4:1). Of the Philippians, Paul said, “I thank God upon every remembrance of you…For God is my witness, how I yearn and long and desire for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:3, 8).

The pages literally burst with joy as Paul considers the people of this place. The words “joy” or “rejoice” appear at least 19 times throughout the four chapters of Philippians.

The important thing Paul emphasizes is that joy goes beyond feeling. His instruction is that joy is a mind thing. Happiness comes and goes with circumstance and situation. Joy, however, remains because joy comes through thinking with God.

Partakers of Grace

The opening part of Philippians 1 features a string of thoughts he’s having about his beloved flock. He’s a caring shepherd who, while apart from the sheep, sets his mind on the memories of them in order to warm his heart.

The fellowship at Philippi in the Gospel was rich and real from the start, he recalled. There was Lydia, but there was also the jailer of the city. This man’s family came to Christ after he heard the hymn sung by Paul and Silas and it summoned an earthquake that shook the dungeon and rattled off their chains. The man became suicidal until Paul called to him and told him of the Way and the Truth – Life broke forth there and then.

This was all God. Paul possessed a mindset of victory because he constantly considered the power of Christ at work in him and in others.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace” (Philippians 1:6-7).

Confidence comes to us as we think in grace. Love abounds as we gain “more and more knowledge” and discernment from the Word and the Holy Spirit. (Philippians 1:9).

To those who may have sorrowed over Paul’s status as a prisoner, he told them to understand this:  “the things that have happened to me have fallen out for the furtherance of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:12).

Think God. Think Gospel. Think mission. Think Jesus and take joy.

Be sure of this, Paul wrote to the Philippians, there will be victory through your prayers and the supply of the Spirit. “Christ shall be magnified in me, whether it by life, or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21-22).

Even the prospect of death could not dampen the joy in the heart of Paul. What kept his heart and mind was the “earnest expectation and hope” that in nothing he would be ashamed; the life to come would be beyond anything we could imagine (Philippians 1:20).

Thoughts of this expectation and hope are the fuel for our joy. Let us hold fast these promises for He shall hold us fast, and hold us fast forever, “so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,  filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:10-11).

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The Final Word and the Order of Angels

Jesus came as the Final Word from Heaven to earth. God got down in the dirt with us, as one of us.

There was no other way to say what needed to be said, and so God took a Body prepared and lived the life in Person, under the sun and upon the waves. A top down operation it was not, as we read in the first chapter of the book of Hebrews. He did not ride into the world followed by a mass of angels, though He truly could have as the Captain of the host of Heaven.

Instead, God entered the horizontal plain. He came to see us eye-to-eye. In doing so, He spoke as the truest Prophet, served as the highest Priest, and claimed the surest of all crowns as King of kings.

Through the ages, prophets were raised to deliver the messages. They came and went. A few were heard and their words were heeded at certain seasons.

Voices for God

Samuel, for one, was called by God to bring Israel back to right worship after the disastrous era of the Judges. They had left the tribes fragmented and defeated in their distance from the One who had delivered them from bondage in Egypt.

Samuel’s ministry was one of restoration. The Word came to him as a youth serving in the Tabernacle. A time of renewal and victory was the result of his ministry, as his preaching and teaching touched the people and moved them nearer to God.

But Samuel grew old and this prophet’s sons were weak men who did not walk in his ways. Thus, the people, in a foolish fit of human reason, demanded to have a king set over them like all the other nations.  The Lord gave them over to their request. A throne was established and a king was set upon it.

This arrangement of rule did not make life better for Israel. The kings proved to be all too human. The majority of them governed with selfish ambition. Their ways are recorded in histories that relate a nation plagued by ups and tremendous downs.

And yet God kept sending His Word through people who chose to fear Him and hear Him.

Most prophets wound up like Jeremiah. He preached consistent and true words, but those words were dismissed and mocked. He suffered much and sang out sad laments as the nation and its royal city Jerusalem slid into deep judgment and heathen occupation.

Jeremiah told of the faithful Lord, the One whose mercies never end and are ever new. He delivered the promise of the new and living Covenant to come. This “expected end” would satisfy and replenish every weary soul as the Word would be written upon hearts rather than tablets of stone. “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” said the Lord (see Jeremiah 31:31-34).

To understand all of this and how it came to be, we have to read the book of Hebrews. In these pages, we get a clear presentation of who Christ is in His fulfillment of Old Testament truth.

The Throne Claimed

At last, the Son was sent. He did more than talk. He lived out the sentences written from eternity past. And He lived them out as one of us. He fulfilled all the Law of the Lord in word, thought, and deed.

Christ entered into Creation, His Creation, with all of its definition and decrees and limitations. Yes, God took on a body of flesh. He lived in this body according to the leading of the Spirit. The radiance of His glory was seen only briefly and by just three – Peter, James, and John – on the Mount of Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1-2). Jesus lived within the confines of the universe He formed and upholds by the Word of His power, to the letter.

Why? He came to be the Man of all men to die the death for all men. And by His death He “by Himself purged our sins” (Hebrews 1:3).

After He finished this work of His, He ascended to take His seat at “the right hand of the Majesty on high.” We read of how the disciples watched Jesus rise through the clouds in Luke 24 and Acts 1. Here, in Hebrews 1, we are told where He went.

The Son of Man became superior to angels through all of this, according to this passage. The royal order of the universe was now restored because of Jesus’ accomplishment as the last Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:45).

The first Adam’s failure disturbed the original order established. Man was meant to exercise dominion through operating in the image of God as Heaven’s designated leaders of life on earth.

To reclaim the kingly position first assigned to man, Jesus became Man. God the Son redeemed all things and regained man’s superiority above the angels. Psalm 8 reveals that man was designed to be crowned with glory and honor and given “dominion over the works” of God’s hands (see Psalm 8:5-6). This status had been forfeited by the fall at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Son became a fellow of ours. He experienced humanity to the full, even unto death.

Reestablishing the Order

More than raising us into right standing with God, Christ’s obedience and offering of Himself also put the angelic realm back into its proper place.

The rebellion of Lucifer, referred to Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, spawned division. This bright, wise, beautiful being sought an exalted status; he lusted for the worship due only to the One Most High. Others sided with him and became demonic affiliates with this fallen prince who possessed power over the world system and its kingdoms, a point noted by Satan to Jesus in the wilderness temptation (see Matthew 4, Luke 4).

Hell lost. The devil was defeated.

Jesus the Son conquered the grave; the curse of death could not corrupt His perfection. As the fully resurrected Man, as a true Son of David, He inherited the Throne of Majesty.

Jesus came from Heaven and situated Himself underneath the cosmic realm of the air. He ambushed Hell and triumphed over the power it possessed by taking all wrath and rage as penalty for sin upon His Person. The fear of death that once imprisoned us was crushed.

All authority belongs to Him. And since we’ve been made one with Him, His authority is ours also.

What of the angels and their power? What are they to us? They are our servants as stated rhetorically in Hebrews 1:14:  “Are not [angels} all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Yes, the angels are our ministers, as they were always meant to be. They serve God and because we are His joy, these beings are all around us. Let us therefore be wise, watchful, and kind according to this instruction:  “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

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Getting the Whole Story

Life doesn’t seem to make sense. Surely you have had this thought. More than that, you’ve probably said this, out loud. Admit it; you have said this, a lot – to whoever would listen.

Leave it to the Lord, via the Holy Spirit, to inspire a book that puts a series of such thoughts into the Scriptures. That’s just like God. He knows us in absolutely every way possible. And because of this He has given us words to read, ponder, consider, and utter for every mood imaginable.

In Ecclesiastes, the result is a stream of consciousness, a run of sentences, poems, declarations. Its verses can leave you scratching your head sometimes. The writer, who I believe to be King Solomon, lets loose, framing his frustrations over and over.

The book opens this way:  “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities. All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The Hebrew word for vanity is hevel. This is the word for smoke.

Smoke, smoke, smoke, all is smoke. I imagine the writer choking on these words as he ponders them. But it is an honest assessment of the world as he is seeing it at the time.

This is all that comes from the toil of those living under the sun.  Burn the midnight oil; work dozens of hours of overtime and what do you have to show for it all?

Smoke, that’s all. One way or another, it all goes up in smoke.

Welcome to life lived based on what we take from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Lord warned Adam and Eve not to eat of its fruit. Here, in Ecclesiastes, I think that we read of the outcome of their disastrous decision.

Knowing Too Much

Job wrestled mightily with the problem of his pain. His grief and affliction brought him low, but he refused to stop seeking God. We read of how Job held fast to his integrity and clung to the hope of his Redeemer and resurrection.

The writer of Ecclesiastes faced another type of wrestling – the mental turmoil that can come from knowing too much.

Yes, Solomon knew more than anyone alive. This how the Word described him:  “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people…he was wiser than all other men” (1 Kings 4:29).

To go with this remarkable breadth of knowledge, Solomon also had health, wealth, and peace in his days. He faced very few challenges–that is, on the outside of himself. This would leave him open to trouble as find out at the end of his days, when foreign wives turned him toward idols (see 1 Kings 11:4). There’s a great truth expressed by the writer in Psalm 119:71:  “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

Internally, Solomon tossed and turned. He admitted his restlessness. He struggled with feelings of confusion. Things as he saw them did not add up. And it exhausted him.  “All things are full of weariness. …” (Ecclesiastes 1:8).

These doubts and questions kept coming. Solomon kept thinking and over-thinking, and these mind games he played led to projects and pursuits and entertainment and academic searching.  He had this written down. He had to have a detailed record of it all.

And because he made sure this happened, we have these pages in our Bibles. The Spirit kept him honest. He strings together words that, if taken by themselves, would make us think that life on earth is just a big zero.

Priceless Pearls

Don’t give up on Ecclesiastes. Put your hand to the plow. Push forward and read carefully. Exercise what Eugene Peterson described as “The Forbidding Discipline of Spiritual Reading.” By this effort, words read can become words lived as we let them sink deep into us.

Faith does come by the Word of God, as our eyes let the Light in and our minds allow us to hear the Voice as He is walking toward us, seeking us, calling us.

Press on and join yourself to the Preacher and his provocations. In the midst of the tangle of rough and haggard sentences, you will find that there’s something small and round and luminous. There are pearls to admire, a precious gem of thought that should give us pause.

Here’s one of them for us to think over:  “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In the Psalms, the writers tossed in the imperative Selah at strategic points. The exact meaning of this term has been debated, but most scholars agree that Selah indicates a suggested pause or quiet moment or musical interlude is to be observed.

I am saying that we can read well and learn to insert Selah at times into our reading, especially into our reading of the Bible. Otherwise, we can just get all caught up in racing along through the syllables, reading but not recognizing or relating to the text and its context.

Reading is something I do a lot of. I am usually working through two to three books at a time in a addition to the daily Bible reading regiment I have. This means that I can get so revved up in the midst of it that the words on the pages do little to touch and nourish my heart.

Three Words

Selah. Sabbath. Shalom. These are three words that I want to better understand as I go through the fourth quarter of my life. I want to obey what Psalm 90 tells me:  “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Selah–we need to pause and consider.

Sabbath–we need to rest and talk and sit at tables enjoying food and company. God established this after the first days of Creation. I believe that the Lord wanted us to know that our existence is not about being busy, busy, busy. The devil’s the one who is constantly roaming and looking to devour.

Shalom–we interpret this word to mean peace. But actually, it speaks of being whole and complete. Jesus finished the work of our redemption at the Cross. There’s nothing more for us to do. We are made one with Him in our salvation when call upon Him.

After all of the ranting and raving and muttering that we read in Ecclesiastes, we do get to enjoy a finishing touch that is clear and right. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

These are the words we must hold fast in our hearts. Think on them. Rest in them. And see yourself as whole in Christ.

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Resurrection Words

“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20:31).

John the Apostle gave us the story of Jesus as he saw it and heard it. He said that he could have written so much more. The other gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – were already circulating through the Christian communities by the time John got around to telling his version of the events. The timing of this gospel was likely the 90s of the first century, so this Apostle, the only one alive at the time, chose to tell things in his own way from the vantage point of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2).

I am grateful to John for giving us so many of the words of Jesus. More than 65 percent of John features sayings from the Savior. This means that the Apostle wrote in such a way so as to let the Son tell us about Himself.

In John 20, we read about Resurrection Day. Here, John had to devote his focus on the important details of that original Easter Sunday. And as a result we have fewer words from Jesus in these passages.

Oh, what words we do have here!

There are words to the sorrowing, to the cowering, and to the doubting. There are words of promise and hope and mission.

The Sound of Her Name

The disciples had spent an agonizing and sleepless Sabbath after the body of their Master was taken from the Cross, wrapped in linen, and laid in the tomb. The stone was rolled in place. It was sealed by the Roman authorities. A crew of centurions got orders to watch over the dead Son for He had said:

“The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day” (Mark 9:31).

The third day dawned, and Mary Magdalene came to find the stone moved and her Lord gone. She ran to fetch Peter and John. These two raced to the tomb and found it as she had said.

Both men were baffled and fearful. Even though they had heard Jesus speak of His rising, they remained mystified. And rather than stay and rejoice – or just stay and investigate the scene – Peter and John went home, leaving Mary there alone.

Perhaps, Peter and John dashed home as fast they could to make arrangements for their escape. They could have been preparing to run away from Jerusalem, as a couple of disciples would do, according the account found in Luke 24. For certain the disappearance of Christ’s body was going to become a cause célèbre, and all connected to Jesus were going to be marked ones.

Mary couldn’t leave, however. She wept as she surveyed the empty tomb. Angels were there and asked of the reason for her tears. “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where He is,” she told them and turned away.

Just then there was Another standing before her; He was the gardener she presumed.

There was once another Garden and another woman, the only woman actually. That woman heard the whispers of deception and slander. She listened and because she did, she fell for the lie and soon she wept in shame and hid away in fear.

In this garden, the woman Mary would hear afresh the Voice of Truth. It was the Voice of the One who set her free, and the Voice of the One who came to make undone all the ravages of defeat that began in that place called Eden.

 “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” This One said to Mary. She begged Him for her Master’s corpse. She wanted to see Jesus once more, even if He was lifeless as she thought He was. She spun from Him and sobbed out her heartbreak

 “Mary.”

So came to her ears the sound of her name, in a Voice that spoke to her pain.

“Mary.”

Spoken by the Voice she knew so well. Those bitter tears of ache and loss were transformed into ones of joy and wonder.

“Rabboni!”

She shouted as she reached to hold Him tight. This tender encounter with this woman once haunted and controlled by demons was the first sign demonstrated by the Firstborn from the Dead.

Like John, she was a disciple who saw herself as much beloved. Her deep love brought her to the tomb site by first light that morning. A woman, this woman, would receive the first words from resurrected lips.

Jesus had places to be and things to do; He had to get her to let go, so He could get going. He did, however, give her a significant message to share:  “Go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Tell them, Mary did. And all through that day she also testified – “I have seen the Lord.”

A Surprise Visit

For their part, the disciples remained on lockdown and mired in disbelief of Mary and her report. The news from the tomb traveled about. Any sound of footsteps struck terror in these shut-ins. They feared for their lives. They took no chances. Doors were bolted tight. Windows were closed.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus spoke, with His scarred hands held out and His wounded side made to be seen. He who was hung on the execution tree of Rome only days earlier stood before them.

Can you see them there? Stunned and silent, the mouths open with no power to utter even a sound. Mary had to be beaming as the reality of His Presence confirmed what she had been telling them all along.

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”

The Savior once dead, was now alive – just as He told them He would be. Joy filled that room as He breathed out a word of promise upon them:

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

One of them was absent from this amazing scene. Thomas missed it.

“We have seen the Lord,” the disciples said. To be fair, Thomas reacted as the others had reacted when Mary said that she saw Jesus.

Thomas said he had to have more to go on. His unbelief needed help. He had to touch the hands and the side of the Savior. That was the kind of proof he needed.

Jesus gave this gift to Thomas.

“Peace be with you.”

This greeting was sounded out again into the room locked tight. Eight days had come and gone. This time Thomas was present. The Son showed Himself and went straight to the doubter and bid Thomas to feel His scars.

“Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 

Thomas dropped to his knees. He worshipped Jesus with a loud shout:  “My Lord and my God!”

Believe

 Jesus chided this follower gently:  “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

That last sentence refers to us, of course. We have not seen Him in the flesh, but we read the words about Him as the Word made flesh – words that carry sacredness because of what they do in us. These words have changed people just like us down through the ages.

The Savior meets us where we are, just as we are. And it is comforting to read that those who were so close to Him — close enough to touch His wounded and scarred skin — were sad and frightened and skeptical as we sometimes are.

For every one of them and for every one of us, He has words of life and healing. He knows us and calls us. We hear words of forgiveness and hope, and we hide them in our hearts.

We believe and we have life in His Name – Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. We are His brothers and sisters, made one with Him and in Him, living before our Father and our God.

Peace be with us.

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The Light of Forgiveness

A woman was caught in the “very act” of adultery and brought to Jesus. She was thrown at His feet right there in the Temple, in the house of mercy.

A number in the mob there had started to gather stones to throw at her. Tragically, as we read through the pages of human history, there are accounts that indicate a strange and evil curiosity tied to public demonstrations of judgment, especially ones that involve execution. Crowds gathered for these bizarre spectacles, and if we read the passage from John 8 carefully, Jesus tells us why.

What had been a regular morning of ministry for the Christ was roughly interrupted. He had come early to the Temple from the Mount of Olives, which was one of His usual places of prayer.

A crowd soon gathered around Him, and so He sat and taught.

It was then that the scribes and Pharisees showed up with their catch. Using this woman, these religious leaders had an object lesson that they used to confront Jesus. They trumpeted the Law of Moses:  “Such women are commanded to be stoned, but what do You say about it?” (see John 8:5).

There was an ulterior motive at work here. Should Jesus sanction this stoning, He would have set Himself as an enemy of the Roman imperial authorities who governed the region. The Jewish community in Judea and its environs were permitted some measure of self-management through the Sanhedrin, a council of leaders who advised the governors.

Capital punishment was not part of this council’s purview. Only Rome could administer this brand of justice. This reality served to set the stage for the Crucifixion of Christ by the decree of Pontius Pilate, who governed Jerusalem.

Scribbling in the Dust

“What do You say about it?”

They pressed Jesus as He lowered Himself and stuck His finger in the dirt before them. “He wrote on the ground,” reported John, the Apostle who penned this gospel.

Here we have the only recorded incident of Jesus doing some writing. What He put down there in the dirt, we do not know. Many have made their speculations, so I will reveal mine for you.

To me, it would be just like Jesus to challenge these religious ones on their own terms. These men formed a gaggle of self-proclaimed defenders of Moses and his writings. So I think the Lord could have made reference to Leviticus 20:10:  “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Perhaps, Jesus was more succinct with His jots and scribbles. Could it be that He just posed the obvious question:  “Where’s the guy?” The very act of adultery does require both adulterer and adulteress, and the Law required both to be put to death.

At last, Jesus stood. This marks a change in the dynamic of the confrontation. He was about to make a declaration of truth from a position of authority. The command with which Jesus spoke astonished those who heard Him. His message came straight from the Father – He made this clear about Himself and His words in the latter portion of John 8 (see verses 18-38).

His declaration was this:  “…He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her” (John 8:7).

Those words cut straight to the core of everyone present. Listen to the stones as they fall to the ground. See the accusers walk away – one by one, oldest to youngest – as these words jabbed conviction into their consciences. At least these consciences were still a bit tender to truth. By the time Jesus was turned over to Pilate on His way to the Cross, these very ones were too hardened to do the right thing.

This mob had been drawn to the scene because of a thirst for vengeance. The real reason for these feelings came from the deficit motivation lurking in their own selves. Their hearts hurt, wounded and scarred by the fallout of their own failures. They were pained by guilt. They did not know what to do with the hurt, except to come and watch someone else take punishment.

No Condemnation

Jesus returned to His writing in the dirt and soon He and the accused woman were left alone. None remained to accuse her. All had come see their own sinfulness in the presence of the Son. Again, He stood to make another statement of authority, a pronouncement of forgiveness and release and responsibility.

 “… Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:10-11).

No condemnation! Paul would write of this great truth in his letter to the Romans. His master treatise on the unrighteousness that lingers in all human beings and its answer in the work of the Person of Christ expands on what we read in John 8. None can excuse himself, wrote Paul. All fall short of the glory of God. Everyone needs a Savior; each of us requires a Redeemer who will announce:  “Neither do I condemn you.”

This passage in John has been analyzed and some view it as something added to John’s gospel at a later point in church history. The character and style of the writing is clearly John’s with the attention to detail and the focus on conversation. Some claim these words are from God but that they are out of place in this context.

Me? I agree with the late Warren W. Wiersbe, onetime Moody Church pastor and host of the Back to the Bible radio show. He says in The Bible Exposition commentary:  “The story fits right here.” And Dr. Wiersbe says this encounter sets up what comes next in the chapter.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

The accused woman was deep in the darkness of sin. Her desperate condition came before Jesus. She stood accused. She was guilty. She had violated the Law that the Lord had communicated through Moses.

Jesus, however, flipped the script on the accusers. He turned on His Light. The Light shined into the accusers. Each of them had to face the record of sin written upon his own dirtied heart. They could have stayed with Him and with her, the one caught in the very act, because now their very acts — their very sinful thoughts even — had been exposed to them as they had exposed this woman.

The Savior went on to describe the power of His Light. It shines the Way to forgiveness and release. Abide in the Word, He told them and “you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

The Son came for them all; for all stand accused before our Holy God. He longed to see every one of them receive His love and be free for “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:37).

The Son, the Truth, Freedom. All can be ours. Thank you, Jesus.

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Making Do with Donkeys

There are a couple stories about donkeys in the Bible. One of them was given a voice; another one gave Jesus a lift into Jerusalem.

In the book of Numbers, we read of the talking donkey. There, we are told the story of the king of Moab who sought out a soothsayer, a magician of some sort who had developed a reputation for calling down curses.

Balak, the king, got news of the people of Israel – word of their numbers and how their God preceded them. Like Pharaoh in Exodus 1, this leader viewed Israel as an enemy to be reckoned with. Word of the decimation of Egypt circulated through the region. The stories of the plagues and the Red Sea’s opening and closing were known.

The God of Israel was feared, but not feared in the sense that read of in Proverbs.  In that book, we come to understand that there is a way of reverence and awe for the Lord that is noted as “the fear of the Lord” that marks the beginning of wisdom.

The king of Moab, rather, was terrified. He didn’t want wisdom; instead, he wanted to preserve his throne, his nation, and his land by any means possible. He recognized the supernatural element at work with Israel. He thought the Lord of all Creation was like the gods he knew about, just another deity who could be bought off. A little bit of appeasement, he thought, might work to protect his reign. And so Balak sent for Balaam, a man of trickery and power available for the right price. The king hired him to pronounce one of his spells on Israel.

The thing that strikes me as odd in the account (see Numbers, chapters 2-25) is just whose ears may hear from the Lord. Balaam gets a visitation and instruction – from God. This is not a man of Israel; he is no descendent of Abraham, and yet God talks to him a number of times.

Perhaps, we should not be so surprised by this encounter. We can read of the Lord coming to see others who are by accounts outside of His chosen ones, starting with Cain.

Yes, the Lord met and talked with the man who murdered his brother, Abel. The exchange ended with Cain going out from the presence of the Lord and starting to build his own city. The Lord also visited Hagar and Abimelech and Laban and Nebuchadnezzar to name a few.

A Beast Speaks

Balaam heard the Lord and agreed with Him. The Lord gave this man seemingly conflicting messages – at first the Lord said, “Don’t go” with Balak’s emissaries to Moab and then later God told Balaam, “Go.”

It was while he was going that Balaam’s beast was given a message to speak. And here is where we get insight into the heart of this magic man. He could hear both God and the donkey. Balaam, in my thinking, was double-minded and therefore unstable in his ways as James 1:8 teaches us.

The point I want to bring home is that the Lord used the beast and her tongue to get His message out there. What does God need to make Himself known, a donkey’s mouth, nothing more.

I have to consider this reality as I am preparing to minister for Him. I can be very clever in my ways. I have digested a lot of books and listened to a lot of teaching, but my intellect could really get in the way of me saying what God really wants to say. Like that donkey, I just have to open my mouth and let Him fill it.

What really counts is what the Lord puts on the lips.

Balaam, it seems to me, became something like his donkey when he at last got to Moab and stood before King Balak. This prophet for hire was now at work for the Lord and he was compelled to tell only the truth that God gave to him.

Commissioned to pronounce curses on Israel a number of times, Balaam, in this situation, spoke real prophecy as the Lord prompted him. He declared Israel a nation of God’s people, as ones Chosen to be blessed and prosperous as His representatives for all generations.

The Phrase That Frees

What of the other donkey? We meet this one in Mark 11. This animal was tied outside Jerusalem. Jesus directed the disciples to find the foal that had carried no one before. The donkey had an owner, but the Savior gave them the passwords so that the beast would be released to them.

“Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, “The Lord has need of it and send it back here immediately.’”And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.And some of those standing there said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go” (Mark 11:1-6).

“The Lord has need” was the phrase that activated the donkey for its mission. Those words were spoken and so Jesus had His vehicle and made His entrance into the City of David. This happened on what we now know as Palm Sunday, a day when the Prophet Zechariah’s message was fulfilled:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

This may be difficult for us to consider, but the Lord has need; He has need of us. He is all powerful and all knowing and everywhere present. These are true attributes of God. Still, He has made room for us to serve Him.

“The Lord has need.” That sentence set the donkey free. It’s what sets all of us free to be in His purpose and plan.

Foolish and Weak Things

Remember, Jesus made it clear that the last shall be first. He made friends with the sinners and the outcasts. He told us all that we must become like little children in order to see the kingdom of God (see Matthew 18:1-5).

These stories about the donkeys tell me that I really don’t need to have much going for me, worldly speaking. I can hear His call and answer His call and He will send me. In fact, the Savior seeks the ones who are seen as foolish and weak to carry Him and His Message to the corners of our streets and to the ends of the earth.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).

We don’t have to be great in the world’s eyes to be useful in Heaven’s sights. We just need to be like donkeys ready and waiting to give Jesus a ride.

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Our Glory Is Not Our Own

It wasn’t much of an entrance, by the world’s standards anyway. But then God never needs much to work with. A small corner of a small room in a small town provided the setting for the arrival of the Son of God.

Jesus was delivered by His mother, Mary, in Bethlehem, in a manger, in a space hollowed out for animals to sleep and to feed. With the carpenter Joseph watching and helping, and among oxen and lambs and some barnyard fowl, the Lord of Heaven came forth to begin His stay on earth.

The details have been spoken of over and over and over throughout the centuries. The telling of these things never grows old. Tinsel and glitter and parties and shopping extravaganzas serve to propound a faux brightness and a nervous tension in our midst. Joy lives on, however. Joy reigns. Joy bursts from the hearts of real believers with songs and prayers.

The Christmas story shines so brightly because it shows the glory of God as it is reflected by such common things. This is precisely the point about Creation and about man in particular.

Our glory is not our own. The glory we exude comes from Him. What God has made for His good pleasure are things that serve as a revelation of Him and of all that He is.

Angels and Glory

I think this is what makes us different from the angels. These beings that move among us possess glory that is a part of their equipment. They were given a shine, and it is a shine that is fitted and fixed. Angelic brightness does not grow in intensity. It is what it is.

Lucifer’s original title – light-bearer — referred to the brightness given to him. It was a mode for the service assigned to him, as he was situated near the throne of the Most High. His glory was a gift to him, but he came to view it as mark of superiority. For this reason, the devil initiated a rebellion that captivated a full third of the host (see Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:13-18).

Satan fell into what he is because of his self-centeredness. He grew enamored with his glory and forsook the design of God for his office and status as an anointed cherub.

Angels were brought into existence according to the will of the Lord, and so were we. But they were not made in the image of God as we are. Also, the angels were not made “living souls” by the breath of God.

What does it mean to be made in His image? I believe it speaks of reflection and connection, union and communion. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are Three Persons and One Lord, and as such, God is love. Love is about the things that are related and refreshed and reflected one to another.

The essence of God in His Trinity understanding has always been about glory that is both shared and as well as distinct. The Persons of the Godhead are One and yet each is unique. It is such a marvelous mystery, a reality so far beyond comprehension that it may only be embraced.

Think of how Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:  “Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You … Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed” (John 17:1, 5). In John 16, Jesus spoke of the Spirit like this:  “He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:4). And Jesus talked of His followers to the Father this way:  “All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10).

Glory, glory, glory in the Highest is what is being communicated by these passages.

Consider this:  when the Lord revealed Himself to Moses, it happened in a wilderness as this man watched over his father-in-law’s flock. Then, God showed up as fire in the midst of a bush. The glow of the glory did not reduce the bush to ashes. Instead, His Presence abided in His Creation and brought Moses near. His Presence consecrated the very ground upon which Moses walked.

Later, we read that Moses’ face absorbed the glory of the Lord as he sat before God. This was noticed by the people and they were afraid to face Moses because of his glow.

In the New Testament, we come to understand that glory has been given to us through the offering and ascension of the Lamb of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, cloven tongues of fire were seen upon the disciples in that upper room on Pentecost as the Spirit moved upon them.

Stephen spoke the Gospel and those who heard him said he possessed the face of an angel. The glory of the Lord shone from him because of the work of the Holy Spirit in him. The record of Luke in Acts 7 reveals that as he perished from the stones thrown at him, Stephen saw Christ as He stood in His place at the throne of grace.

Glory, Closer Than We Think

The glory of God is closer to us than we think. The Holy of Holies, the most hallowed place of Israel’s Tabernacle and Temple, was divided from the rest of the worship center. What was put between this glorious room and everything else?  A curtain – the separation was demarcated by a veil, one that had been stitched and fashioned by the people who worshipped the Lord.

The Holy of Holies’ curtain was decorated with two cherubim. This imagery pointed back to the Garden of Eden and the angels who guarded the way to the Tree of Life in the midst of the Presence in the Garden. Man’s fall put something between the Lord and His prized creatures, the ones He made in His image.

It wasn’t a wall of separation that was erected, however. The glory of the Lord was not locked up behind gates and bars and chains. It was not vaulted or sealed. It was veiled – His glory just inches beyond us. Between man and the glory lay just a curtain, just a woven tapestry; a creation of fabric was what kept the glory of God from human eyes.

Veiled was the sign of His Presence until the coming of the Son. When the Son completed His redemptive work, the Temple curtain was ripped from top to bottom.

Jesus came to reveal the salvation of God to all flesh (see Luke 3:6).  God the Son took on flesh, bone, and Blood. Fragile things of frail dust as they are, these in Christ still were subject to the ordinances of nature and the earth. His Body was and is a true Body. He grew weary. He ate food. He wept. He touched many – infants, lepers, blinded eyes, deadened ears.

Our flesh can be sliced with ease. We bleed readily. And so it was with Jesus.

The Son’s glory was deposited into our form, into our likeness. He hid Himself behind the fabric of humanity, our very humanity.

Jesus was born to be torn.

With the tearing of the Son on the Cross, the veil of the Presence of God was opened to everyone. Glory can flow to us and into us and through us. We who are born again in Him are now living temples of the His Spirit. We are free to be set aglow with the glory of God. We can have as much of Him as we want, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians:

“…When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:15-18).

Let us rejoice for what He has made us to be. Though we are common, rough, imperfect works in progress, we still stand as reflectors of the glory of the Lord God Almighty.

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A Song. A Dream. A Promise

A girl got a song.

A carpenter got a dream.

A just and loyal old saint got a promise from the Spirit.

All of them are part of the Christmas story. And each one shows us something important about the way of God in this world.

Let’s first look at the aged man named Simeon from the account in Luke 2. He was a man of expectation. There are always such people among us. The Bible makes this clear.

Periods of turmoil come and go. Any look at the record of history should make this obvious to us.

Early in Genesis, we read that the world and its residents, which had been created good, good, and very good in the eyes of the Lord, had become profane and debased in mind and heart. So wicked was life on earth that it caused God to grieve to the point of considering its total destruction.

There was Noah, however, and his family. He found grace and the Lord instructed him to build an ark for his people and sent the Flood to wash all the others away. Through this faithful follower of God, humanity got a restart.

Simeon was of Noah’s kind. A watchman, he was. He had heard from the Spirit that his days on earth would not end until “he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (see Luke 2:26).

Humble Eyes, Humble Heart

I imagine Simeon with wide open eyes and discerning ears. He surveyed the streets of Jerusalem on his walks to the Temple. He listened closely to the conversations for he knew that his faith had “come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).

The Spirit guided Simeon’s steps to the Temple just as Joseph and Mary arrived with Jesus. Born eight days earlier, this Firstborn was to be presented by the parents to the Lord according to the order of the Law.

Poor ones from Nazareth were they, and as such, they could only afford pigeons to confirm their offering of this Son. Those looking for the Messiah were expecting a grander entrance from Him, one fit for royalty.  Nathaniel, the Apostle, expressed thoughts of Jesus representative of the mood among the Jewish people:  “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (See John 1:46).

Simeon refused to judge by appearances, however. He believed and knew at once who Jesus was (and is forever) – the salvation of God prepared for all people and the true glory of Israel (Luke 2:30-32). He took the baby Jesus into his arms and blessed God. I can see this old man singing, “He is here, Hallelujah; He is here, Amen.”

This ancient man of God revealed his humility. He rejoiced at the presence of Emmanuel, though He came small and to the home of a poor, worker’s family.

A Faithful Husband

Simeon’s words were marveled at by Joseph, another man of humility and faith and obedience. The story of Mary being impregnated by the Holy Spirit became a cause célèbre and scandalous news around his town. And yet Joseph loved Mary and sought to dissolve their betrothal contract in quietness so as to shield her from added disgrace.

As he slept on this decision, this carpenter got his visitation: “… an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’” (see Matthew 1:20-21).

Joseph took Mary as his wife, though she, a virgin, carried this Child. He treasured his promise from God despite the difficulties associated with it. Things would never be easy for this couple into whose home the Son was born. Joseph, I believe, listened carefully as Simeon blessed them. With the blessing came also a warning about days of pain and sorrow that were to come.

The somber words of Simeon were directed mostly to Mary. She would have her heart shredded as she watched the way of the Son. She nursed Him. She mothered Him through His adolescence – losing track of Him one Passover visit to Jerusalem, as we know from the latter part of Luke 2. She followed this Firstborn from His birth to His death and also to what came above and beyond His dying.

Mary Magnified the Lord

Mary stood alongside John at the Cross, as Jesus committed her to the care of the Apostle (John 19:26-27). And we also know she circulated among the band of disciples after His Resurrection and His Ascension. She and her other children were in the upper room when the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit blew into them at Pentecost (see Acts 1:14).

What was it that kept Mary? How did she weather the storms that would blow upon her mother’s heart?

I believe it was her song. This should not surprise us, for Paul wrote that songs and hymns and spiritual songs are vital to the stirring up of our faith as we read in Ephesians 5:19-21 and Colossians 3:16. The verse from Colossians is part of an exhortation to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” and bring wisdom. Songs were and should be vehicles of admonition and consolation.

Mary’s Magnificat, as it has come to be known, goes like this:

“… My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

“For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

“He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever” (Luke 1:46-56).

Throughout her life, I believe that Mary sang this song to herself. The words detail the redemptive plan of Heaven. The proud shall be brought down. The humble exalted. The hungry filled with good things that come by grace through faith.

The girl with this song was an amazing believer, just as Simeon and Joseph were remarkable and faithful men. All of them magnified the Lord and rejoiced in the God of their salvation.

And thanks to people such as them, His mercy has been revealed from generation to generation.

Holy is His Name.

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Faith That Saves

Two tables. Two hosts. Two salvations.

The episodes I want to examine are both found in the gospel of Luke. The first one is toward the end of Luke 7 and involves a Pharisee named Simon who asked Jesus to come to dinner at his home.

The word on the street was that Jesus was very comfortable to share a meal with tax collectors and sinners. This activity brought questions and scoffs and mockery.

Jesus had an answer for such slanders and accusations: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). This habit of His was part of His healing mission, He said.

How would things go for Jesus at the table of “healthy” man?

Casual Reception

I am sure the Pharisee’s invitation carried an ulterior motive. It was calculated, a setup of sorts. Simon knew the talk of Jesus. Some were calling Him a prophet. His words were words that projected authority; His talk left hearers astonished with its clarity and penetration. His miracle works of healing and deliverance created a remarkable stir, an expectation was growing that perhaps the Messiah had really come.

Yes, Simon indeed had heard of His sermons and His works. His invitation offered him an opportunity for this “healthy” one to gauge the carpenter’s Son from Nazareth at close range.

And so Jesus showed up. However, His reception at the home was of a perfunctory sort. His was a somewhat chilly and borderline dishonorable welcome when judged by the cultural standards of the day and region.

The Son was not met with a kiss of greeting; He was given no water with which to clean His dusty feet; nor was the courtesy of fragrant oil for His sun-parched brow extended to Him. Still, Jesus entered and took His place of recline with the others there and was prepared to enjoy the meal that was to come.

An Uninvited Visitor

The scene at the Pharisee’s home soon was interrupted by one of the “sick” ones. A “woman of the city,” one well known as the village harlot, came in and she reached the Feet of Jesus. She began kissing those Feet and weeping upon them. She let her hair hang down – a somewhat immodest act when done in public — and with her hair she began to wipe those Feet. She lavished one more thing upon those sacred Feet as she broke a box of costly perfume and poured it out.

Likely this final act represented that there had been a real transformation in her life. This perfume was among the important tools of her trade in the sex market in which she trafficked. Here, she abandoned this valuable essence and sought to put aside her sordid livelihood. She was giving herself to the Lord.

Another from among the publicans and sinners had become a friend of Jesus. She crashed the dinner party and turned the event into a salvation celebration. For that’s what this became in the Savior’s heart anyway.

Hearts Revealed

Simon the Pharisee was too incredulous and too filled with scorn even to speak. Instead, thoughts of contempt percolated within him: “This Man cannot be from God for no holy Teacher would allow Himself to be part of something like this,” he thought.

Jesus heard those thoughts as if they were spoken out loud. He delivered a parable on big debtors and small debtors and drove home the point that those forgiven much are those who love much.

Forgiveness? Did Simon even realize how much he needed it? He did at least “judge rightly” in noting that those who are shown greater mercy respond with greater love.

Jesus then brought things to head with these words to her: “’Your sins are forgiven.’ Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this, who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’” (Luke 7:49-50).

A Man Up a Tree

The other episode we want to look at is in Luke 19. It happens in the town of Jericho. There, a tax collector named Zacchaeus was stuck in the midst of a crowd awaiting the Lord’s arrival. Being a short man, Zacchaeus got himself up into a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus as He walked into town.

This time Jesus took matters into His hands, setting up His own lunch date with the notorious publican. “Zacchaeus, get out of that tree. I must eat at your table today,” announced the Savior.

The atmosphere was soon thick with consternation. Those in the throng muttered aloud about Jesus’ choice of company. The man was a cheat and a crook and all of Jericho knew it.

By the time Jesus reached his table, Zacchaeus was changed. Born again, the tax collector committed himself to new way of living. “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods give to the poor. And if I have jdefrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost’” (Luke 19:8-10).

More Than Friends

This is one of the clear presentations from Jesus on the matter of saving faith. Abraham believed and was made a friend of God. By faith, righteousness was counted to him. Lost and desperate Zacchaeus was called out of the tree and shown the way to new life in Jesus.

The Son came to seek and to save – us, all of us. Revelation 3speaks of the Lamb of God knocking on our doors, bidding us to open up to Him. If we let Him in, He will sit down at our table and sup with us (see Revelation 3:20).

It’s a great bargain, a great exchange – He gives us His life for ours. All we have to offer Him is our faith, and that’s enough for Him.

Just open the door. Believe God, believe Him more than ever. He forgives and restores and cleanses. Friends of God are made this way.

He sees as more than friends really. He sees us as One with Him. He sees each of us as He sees Himself, as the Son of the Most High.

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The All We Have to Give

A widow marched to the offering box with all that she had, as we read in Mark 12. Just two mites were in her hand – all of the money she had to her name. A mite represented the smallest and least valuable of the coins in circulation during Jesus’ days on earth. It is likely that a single penny plucked out of a gutter on Dundalk Avenue would count for more monetarily than what this woman gave.

Others in the giving line that day, for sure, deposited far more by economic and business standards. But were these ones being as generous as her?

On this day, the Lord was watching and He liked what he saw.

Jesus took note of this widow and her gift, and He rejoiced. He gathered His disciples to Him and made much of her. “Truly I tell you, this widow has put more into the treasury than all the others,” the Savior explained (see Mark 12:43).Here was someone willing to give her all to the work of God. Her action revealed a wealth, a richness that exceeded the riches as they are measured by our world.

The One with Almost Everything

This story comes to us a couple of chapters after Jesus encountered a rich, young ruler. That man was a man of means. He had money, youth, and power – everything that the world counts as valuable was his.

Still, this rich, young ruler was missing something and he knew it. He surmised that he was somehow poor. The sense of his poverty brought him to Jesus. He fell before the Savior and asked:  “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (See Mark 10:17).

Jesus first deflated his words of flattery – “Why do you call Me good? None is good except God alone” – and then told him to keep the commandments. These things, the man claimed to have done from his youth.

Next came what Mark described as a moment of divine affection:  “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing:  go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me’” (see Mark 10:21).

Go, sell, give, come and follow. Simple and huge commandments had been laid before the rich, young ruler; these commandments were directed straight at his heart. He was unready for such an answer. He left the scene in dismay and grief, Mark wrote, for his possessions were many and these things possessed him, as they so easily do when we wed ourselves to the ways of the world.

Jesus sorrowed too at that moment. “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God?” He lamented to His disciples as the man walked away.

Seek His Face

What became of this rich, young ruler?

We aren’t told specifically. Some have conjectured that this man was really John Mark himself, the very one who wrote the story. The Bible, however, leaves open the question of his identity. The Word of God refuses to behave like fairy tales and legend stories. Tidy endings very often go missing, and we are left in wonder and moved to consider afresh His unsearchable judgments, His ways that are passed finding out (see Romans 11:33).

What the Bible does clearly tell us is this:  “Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face evermore” (Psalm 105:4). His face, God wants us to come before His face.

This is the richness of real life in God. David wrote, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to You, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek’” (Psalm 27:8).

Could it be that the rich, young ruler had this going on inside of him? Jesus was there and this man wondered of a better life, of a life before the Lord, of a life eternal and forever, of the life missing among his prosperity. And so he sought the face of God in Jesus. He put himself right there.

This brings to my mind Ecclesiastes 3:11:  “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

The widow had so little by sight. Something in her brought her to the Temple on that day. She saw the richness of God and His grace. She committed herself to Him. She was richer than she, or anyone of the others giving that day, could imagine. She embodied what James wrote:  “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5).

The rich, young ruler, perhaps, wanted to be an heir in the Kingdom. He wanted peace with the Lord and an understanding and security in the life that comes from above. I pray that he did bring himself to heed the words of the Lord. I want to believe that he gave away his possessions to possess what really matters.

Oh, how rich we are because of our faith in Him. May we realize this eternal reality. And may we be generous with the love and faith the Lord has poured into us. Let us bless others and forgive and show mercy and walk before Him in His greatness.

Small things are never despised by Jesus. Anything given with the whole heart is worthy of honor for what the world sees as last is made first in Heaven.

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The Shadow of His Wings

A lot gets said about the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. We really make quite a to-do about the Christmas story with its manger. And well we should. Christmas comes during a season when it’s colder and darker. We enjoy the proclamation of the Light of God entering into our world. This warms our hearts.

Jesus came to earth with an ultimate purpose and eternal destinations in mind. We are getting close to that time of the year when we celebrate the Son and the story of His arrival, His original Advent, the time when He allowed Himself to live a “little lower than the angels.”

There will be dramatic presentations featuring choirs, Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, the shepherds. Songs such as “Joy to the World” will ring throughout churches as we think on the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Yes, we hear plenty about how Jesus came – conceived of the Holy Spirit and born to a virgin girl. We also know a good bit about where He came from – the little town of Bethlehem, as prophesied in Micah 5:2. His birth was a miracle starting point – just the beginning of a series of things related to the Lord’s redemptive plans for the world that He so loves.

Now more than ever, what matters to me is where Jesus went and where He is at present.

The Savior reached His ultimate destination with the Ascension. He was lifted through the clouds to take His seat at the right hand of the Father. There, He sits as the Advocate for us. He speaks on our behalf for He brought perfected, glorified humanity to Heaven as the Resurrected One, the firstborn from the dead.

There were other stops along the way to this place of honor and intercession set above our world.

The Curtain Torn

During His days on earth, Jesus set His face “like a flint” toward Jerusalem and the Cross upon which He was nailed and hung (see Isaiah 50:7 and Luke 9:51). This city with its Golgotha – the skull hill of Roman execution — was to be the scene of His death.

He always understood this. The dark and bitter battle in Gethsemane marked a fierce struggle for the Son to push forward and reach the site of the ultimate offering for the sins of all. He labored in that Garden through a lonely and desperate evening of prayer for the Father’s will to be done.

He did arrive at the Cross – battered, scourged, crowned with thorns. He was lifted up from the earth as He said that He would be. From the wood He went to the grave, from the grave He came alive and went to the sky.

The reports of the crucifixion include the high moment when the Christ committed His spirit to the hands of the Father. “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:51).

The curtain referred to in this passage is the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the worship center God had ordained and defined for His people. The only thing that rested behind that veil was the Mercy Seat. This seat was where the High Priest was to sprinkle the blood of atonement for the sins of the people.

The Mercy Seat

I have always been drawn to stories about the Mercy Seat. This significant item, related to the worship of God, is first introduced to us in the latter chapters of Exodus. The instructions for the Mercy Seat’s design and its position in the Tabernacle were given to Moses during his days before the Lord at Mount Sinai.

The Mercy Seat sat atop the Ark of the Covenant, a holy cupboard that originally contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna saved from the days of Israel’s wilderness wanderings, and the budded almond branch labeled by Aaron that confirmed his family’s assignment to the priesthood.

This lid upon the Ark was a slab of pure gold and of one piece with the figures of two cherubim that framed it. The angel statues faced the space to which the blood was applied, their wings hanging over it and guarding it. This picture gets mentioned in a number of Psalms as “the shadow” of God’s wings. It is a place of refuge and rejoicing, according the songs attributed to David:

“Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings” (Psalm 17:8).

“Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge until destruction passes by” (Psalm 57:1).

This Seat and the Ark it sat upon were rarely seen, at first. Only the High Priest was supposed to come before it as he entered into the Holy of Holies, illumined only by the glory of the presence of the Lord. And he was to do this just once a year on the Day of Atonement.

A reading of the Old Testament reveals that the Ark was eventually brought out into the open and not always for good reasons. In 1 Samuel, two diabolic priests carried the Ark to the battlefield because they perceived it would bring some magic power of victory to Israel’s army. They were wrong and they wound up dead, the Ark falling into the possession of the enemy Philistines.

Eventually, David brought the Ark with the Mercy Seat to his palace compound in Jerusalem. He sat and prayed before this as he ruled as Israel’s king.

Jesus, the eternal Son of David, would also come to the Mercy Seat, but not to the one fashioned by human hands.

The Blood Speaks

Like all things related to the Tabernacle and the Temple of Israel, the Mercy Seat was a figure of something actual and real in the place where God dwells. The book of Hebrews tells us this:  “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24).

The veil was torn, as shown in the gospels, to indicate the new and living way that Christ made for us who believe upon Him. “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

The Manger, the Cross, the Grave, the Throne — all of these are sacred places in the Gospel story, the telling of the works of the Son. We know them and talk about them and rejoice over what represent. They stir our faith.

For me, however, I want to ever keep the Mercy Seat in my mind. From that holy thing, the substance of our salvation continues to speak today, tomorrow, and forever. The Blood of the Lamb of God is there even now. The Blood answers every accusation made against us. We are declared to be all clean, made whiter than snow.

We stand redeemed in Him and eagerly await His arrival to reign as there will come the New Heavens and the New Earth.