Author: steveandrulonis

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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.