Category: Christianity

Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 11

February 11th, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 14:22-36; Acts 20:13-38; Psalm 34, Exodus 30-31.

One of the greatest causes of the breakdown in relationships is unspoken expectations. We assume another person holds a certain attitude, opinion or outlook, or we thought they would or should respond a certain way under certain conditions – and when they don’t, we feel betrayed. There isn’t an actual betray mind you, but our assumptions and expectations were contradicted, and it feels like betrayal. And this same dynamic can be at work in our relationship with God in Christ.

The Psalmist in Psalm 73 wrestles with this issue, and by his own admission, it almost derailed him. He saw the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering and he thought to himself: Psalm 73:13–14 “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. 14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” I’m the one obeying God, and I am the one suffering, while those who scoff at Him seem to do better – then why serve Him? And there is the crisis of the unspoken expectation. The Psalmist assumed that serving God meant an easier life – one without the trials, temptations, sorrows and difficulties which those who do not serve God OUGHT to have instead. But of course, there is nothing in Scripture which intimates any such viewpoint. In fact, that is the viewpoint of the idolator, not the Believer. If I make my sacrifices, keep to my rituals, obey my list of duties – I will be “blessed” with the good life. That’s the contract. Only it isn’t.

And this could well have been the way it was with the Disciples that night Jesus sent them across the lake after feeding the 5,000. As they were soon to learn in this place obedience to Christ is no barrier to trial, danger and struggle. This scenario will be repeated in the lives of His disciples both in similar circumstances as well as in very different ones. There they were, doing what He had specifically asked, while facing inhuman and insurmountable opposition in the storm.

And they were also to learn, that it is in these hours we are to look for His visitation.

Perhaps this is you today. Perhaps you have imbibed the rubric of the idolator, rather than understanding the simple opposition of this fallen world – and expected your faith in Jesus to magically make the sorrows of this life disappear. When all along He has something greater in mind. His appearing in the very midst of the greatest danger. He IS drawing near to you in your trial. It doesn’t mean the wind and waves will automatically subside. But it does mean, if He is with you, you will not ultimately succumb. And before you know it, you will reach Heaven’s shore. Safe and sound. Trust Him, not some unspoken expectation.
Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 7

February 7th, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 13:1-23; Acts 18:18-28; Psalm 30, Exodus 19-20.

The 2nd half of Psalm 30:5 gets quoted often, even by those who may have no sense of its origin. ”weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” And by itself, it does form a nice little platitude – though not at all accurate in every circumstance.

The context here makes all the difference. For it is in the midst of David extolling how it is God remains faithful to those who are His. Faithful, even when we have sinned against Him. The first past of the verse brings it into clearer focus: “For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime” This would be a good place to mentally insert the word “therefore”. In other words, it is because the first part of the verse is true, that the second part is true. And this is meant to remind the Believer – not the World in general – that even on those times when we have failed our Savior gravely, wounded Him deeply by our sin and rebellion, grieved His Holy Spirit within us – so as to rouse His anger, it is not the kind of anger that casts off.

Unlike fickle human anger which often sacrifices love on the altar of anger – not so our God. When He has set His love on one, He may at times be angry with us, but it is only a momentary anger punctuating a lifetime of love.

Hear His Word Believer. Yes, we can anger Him at times. But in Christ and as Christ’s – bought with His blood, it is an anger within a context of love, and never, NEVER the withdrawal of love in anger. And so it is we might smart for a time under the hand of His righteous discipline – but there is never any reduction in His love. His anger is – when it is all said and done, never according to what we really deserve, but always tempered – is but for a moment. But His favor, ah, that Dear One, is for a lifetime.

What a wonderful Savior He is.
Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 5

February 5th, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 12:22-37; Acts 17:16-34; Psalm 28, Exodus 13-15.

It is amazing how God’s dealings with the Children of Israel grant us lasting insight into how He still continues to deal with the Saints in every generation. And part of our reading today in Exodus 14:10-15 is one such wonderful example.

As with the immediate aftermath of Israel fleeing the confines of Egypt, it is not unusual for the newly minted Christian, to suddenly and fearfully find him or herself pursued by his former sins in a most menacing way. How fiercely they come seeking fresh dominion. And at times, it may seem as though remaining as was would be preferable to being caught once again – and then perhaps dragged even lower than before they believed.

We fear we will never be free of the fetters we have been strapped by for so very very long. Generations of bondage to sin leaving its scars everywhere.

But God has a plan. He intends to be glorified in His grace toward us in victory over our former bondage – a decisive victory that we have not yet imagined.

How shall it be accomplished? The same way our deliverance was at the first – by believing our Lord, and trusting Him.

1. Believing unequivocally that He has our best interest at heart. “Fear not”. Do not fear that what Christ has done can in any way be un-done.

2. Believing that He intends to vanquish the power of sin’s dominion over us. “Stand firm”. Stay your ground. Do not flee back. The LORD WILL fight for you.

3. Believing enough, to let our hearts be silent in trust – that in our continuing to follow, God will break Egypt’s back on our behalf. “Be silent”. Do not cry out as though there is no hope – trust His promise. Trust Him.

4. Believing that it is our call to continue to “go forward” (15) where it seems there is no clear path before us – what appears to be only sea. Keep pressing on toward Heaven. God’s intent is to bring you there. Keep in the Word. Keep in prayer. Keep in worship. Keep in the Gospel. Keep in faith. Press on where it seems there is no place to press on – and He will make a way.
Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 4

February 4th, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 12:1-21; Acts 17:1-15; Psalm 27, Exodus 10-12.

In Matt. 12, this is now the second time Jesus has confronted the Pharisees on this same question – they do not get what Jesus means, that God has said He desires mercy above sacrifice. See: 9:13.

The point of the sacrifices is not the sacrifices themselves, but the mercy they are intended to point to. God doesn’t delight in the practice – He delights in what the practice is meant to display – that there is a sacrifice, an atonement for sin – a blood atonement – the blood of the Lamb of God.

This is what Jesus means when He says something greater than the Temple had arrived. The Temple could only function as a temporary edifice to spotlight the types and shadows. It could support the priesthood, the sacrifices, the table of shewbread, the lampstand and the holy of holies with the Ark, but it was not the substance.

Christ is the substance. And the problem with the Pharisees at that point, is the very same one with all man-made religion: It fails to recognize the authentic that the types and shadows point to. They were not recognizing Jesus as the fulfillment of all these things.

And many is the religionist today who does the very same thing, even in the name of Christianity. Putting emphasis upon rites, rituals and law-keeping – rather than on the substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross as that to which all of these other things can only point. Keeping them in and of themselves, no matter how scrupulously – has no value at all. He alone, is Heaven’s treasure and the provision for our sin.

What a wonderful Savior!
Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 2

February 2nd, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 11:1-19; Acts 15:22-41; Psalm 25, Exodus 4-9.

The entire account of the Exodus moves from one extraordinary event to the next. Moses arrived back on the scene after his 40 years tending sheep – then showed the Israelites the “signs” God had given him to authenticate his mission. Note the text says in 4:28 that Moses showed them “all the signs.” God had given him 3 – his staff turning into a serpent and back again; his hand becoming leprous and then healthy again; and water from the Nile poured out on the ground and turning to blood. It was enough for them to do on at first, but when Pharoah pushed back and it became difficult for them, they lost the will to pursue.

Still, we are met with Exodus 6:9 (ESV): “Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.”

Chronic pain and long sustained trials have the effect of rendering us less able to hear God’s message. It is not because we are more sinful in those times – though such seasons often prove to be times of unusual temptation as well – but the nature of how pain focuses all of one’s attention to the distress. And that is true whether the discomfort is physical, emotional or spiritual. Pain creates background noise in the soul that drowns out almost everything else. And when it comes to the Believer’s attention that this is happening, they can begin to feel guilt or shame – over what is simply a natural phenomenon, and one our God clearly understands. How do we know? Because He preserved this account for us in His Word.

Beloved, if this is you, if this is a season where some sort of distress makes it exceedingly hard to hear the voice of God in His Word, in sermons, in good spiritual books, Christian music and even the counsel of dear friends – do not imagine that because your grip on the familiar discourse with your Lord somehow means He has lost His grip on you.

The Psalms are filled with laments when God seemed distant and even opposing – and then with notes of how God kept and answered all along. God never lost His grip on compromised Lot. On rebellious Jonah. On fainting Elijah. And even on tragic Samson. He knows those who are His and He knows how to keep us in the darkest, direst and most distressing times. Surely Lazarus had lost every ability to cling to His God; but Jesus could break the power of death’s darkness itself with but a word.

He will not let you go. Trust Him with your weakness and distraction as much as you trust Him with the guilt of your sin.

As George Matheson penned so many years ago:

O Love, that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in Thee;

I give Thee back the life I owe,

That in Thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

2

O Light, that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to Thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.

3

O Joy, that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be.

4

O Cross, that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from Thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.
Through the Word in 2020 / Feb. 1

February 2nd, 2020

My apology for the tardiness of this installment, I am afraid a rather nasty tangle with strep throat has left me wanting energy more than I would have thought. Nevertheless, here is yesterday’s and today’s will be right on its heels.

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 10:21-42; Acts 15:22-41; Psalm 24, Exodus 1-3.

We all face trials. At different times, of different kinds, of longer or shorter duration, and of varying levels of pain; be it physical, emotional, relational or even spiritual. And I can think of nothing more comforting for my own soul in those times than the last 3 words of Exodus 2:25: “and God knew.”

God knew the Israelite’s predicament. He knew their slave status. Their forced labor. The danger to all their male children born. Their exceedingly harsh conditions. And in the natural, their hopelessness. He knew their groaning and their cries for rescue. He knew.

And He knows your distress too. I don’t know about you but I need to know He knows when I am suffering. When the sting of having fallen into sin again is fresh and hot on my conscience. When relationships have grown painful. When my loved ones are suffering. When employment is heavy, distressing, threatened or missing. When my body is weak, sore or chronically out of order. When my head throbs, when the bills are overdue, when resources are small, when answers to critical questions are wanting, others treat me in less than kind ways.

Beloved, never be without this word ringing in the back of your mind – whatever your fear, pain, confusion or discomfort this hour – YOUR GOD KNOWS. And in due time and in the most perfect and wisest of ways – He will also act.

Maybe He will choose to change a circumstance or a heart. Maybe He will come alongside and simply hold you up that you can endure. Maybe He will speak a word of comfort deep in your soul that is so transcendent that everything else while unchanged, no longer commands your field of vision. Maybe a song will suddenly soothe your soul, inject new hope, or remind you of His unbreakable promises and the hope of glory still before you.

Whatever and however He answers, and He WILL answer the cries of His own – cling to this: as God knew their condition – so He knows yours too. He knew the depths of our distress when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins – and He sent Jesus to die in our place. How much more then does He know the groanings that still attend this life.

Your God knows.
The Creaking on the Stairs – A Book Review and Recommendation

January 28th, 2020

Rosaria Butterfield wrote that The Creaking on the Stairs by Mez McConnell “is the most disturbing book that I have ever read.” She followed that by adding: “I cannot recommend it highly enough.” And I can only echo her comments on both counts. It is as profoundly helpful as it is disturbing. And that is saying a lot.

The book itself is not arranged as an autobiography though it contains much which is auto-biographical from Mez. Most chapters contain enough recollections to let you in on the heart-rending abuse Mez suffered on every level. Physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Yet it is done in such a way as to avoid any hint of prurience, nor crossing over into either bitterness, self-pity or needless gory detail.

It is raw.

But it is also marked by a relentless appeal to sound, Biblical theology terminating always on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Grace colors every page.

Mez knows the hidden truth that only the redeemed can safely revisit the depths of their own and other’s sins if it is done in the light of the Cross. And so his writing can be so unsparing in revealing the hideousness of sin – because an abounding grace prevents that view from eclipsing the light.

This book will not satisfy the bloodlust of the drive-by gawker. He does not dwell on nor traffic in the salacious. But I cannot help but think that it can and will give other abuse victims much-needed commiseration and validation while preventing them from wallowing in self-pity, or other sinful responses to the sins perpetrated upon them.

It is not for the faint of heart.

But it is for the wickedly shattered heart. And it is so Gospel-centered that one cannot help but be staggered by how our sovereign God can bring such unspeakable goodness out of the worst the World, the Flesh and the Devil can do.

If you are an abuse survivor, you need to read this book.

If you love an abuse survivor, you need to read this book.

If you minister to abuse survivors – as all pastors necessarily do – wittingly or unwittingly – you need to read this book.

And if you are or have been an abuser yourself – you need to read this book.

Even if abuse is completely outside the orbit of your personal experience – you need to read this book.

The framework of sound theology so practically, clearly and accessibly laid out cannot help but be a benefit in organizing your own thought process. Gaining this level of theological thinking as applicable to everyday life is truly a gift this book can help impart.

There are no trite answers.

Disturbing and glorious.

Buy it. Read it. Weep. And rejoice.
Through the Word in 2020 / Jan. 25

January 25th, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 10:1-20; Acts 15:1-21; Psalm 23, Genesis 50.

If you are looking at the plan carefully, you will note that this is our last reading for January – giving us a number of “catch up” days if we have fallen behind. So our next installment will pick up Feb. 1.

But for today, I would like us to briefly consider Gen. 50:15-21.

I am struck by two things. 1. The way my heart can mirror that of Joseph’s brothers when circumstances in my life make me uncertain of the future.

Now that their Father was dead, they feared Joseph’s goodwill toward them had been motivated only by Joseph holding back because of his Father, and not genuinely Joseph’s heart. And when I sin or fail, or for whatever reason I grow uncertain or unsteady, it is easy for me to think that the Heavenly Father’s love for me is only based upon my performance. That if I mess it up, He will turn and His goodwill toward me will end. That it is not His nature, heart and promises that I actually depend upon but my own ability to obey perfectly. And it is a false accusation against His love. It suspects Him. It makes Him out to be less than He is in His mercy, grace, lovingkindness, forgiveness and love.

2. I am struck at how their distrust of Joseph’s love toward them wounded him. When they spoke to him with their sham message from their Father – he wept. And I wonder how often we wound the heart of our Savior, and the Father who loved us so that He sent His only Son to die on the Cross for OUR sins, when we doubt His steadfast love, faithfulness, care, concern, tenderness, patience and forgiveness. We treat Him as though He had no idea how we would sin later after He saved us, and that His love toward us is so fragile, that the sins Jesus died for, can in any way nullify His finished work.

God loves nothing more from His children that to be believed, trusted. That we take Him at His word. Look at His track record and trust Him with our sin. All of it. And that when He testifies of Himself that He IS love – that it is a love which our finite failings have no ability to negate.

Trust Him, beloved. Trust His love.
Through the Word in 2020 / Jan. 23

January 23rd, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 9:14-26; Acts 13:26-52; Psalm 22:1-11, Genesis 48.

The Disciples of John came to Jesus with a curious question about fasting. Fasting in Jesus day had taken on some aspects we see even today. Throughout the Old Testament fasting was always tied to some aspect of mourning. It expressed grief over war, famine, loss and especially in repentance after a spiritual decline. But it wasn’t long before fasting became somewhat superstitious – a means to somehow bend the arm of God to do something for us that He was reluctant to do. And it became a symbol of one’s personal piety.

Jesus in his answer to them, bids them to remember that fasting, like so many other things is tied instead to certain seasons. Seasons like I mentioned above. And thus, it would not be proper for Jesus’ disciples to be fasting right at this moment, for He, the Bridegroom was with them. It wasn’t the season for fasting but for rejoicing. Their days of mourning would come in time. But not now.

And this bids us all to remember that even in nature, God has built in the idea of seasons. As the Writer in Ecclesiates reminds us: Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 (ESV) — For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

Seasons come and go. None are permanent. We are not meant for unalloyed joy yet. There will be days of sorrow and grief. And, we are not made for nothing but misery now. We keep our eyes open for a change of season, even the great change when we shall see Him in His return. Don’t faint at your present season if it is troublesome. It will not last. And don’t cling too tightly to a present season of ease and joy as though it is meant to always be that way and something is horribly wrong if for a time such joy departs. Trust in the God of the Seasons. Find the treasure in each. Commit yourself to Him in each. The Great Day of Christ’s appearing – is just before us.
Through the Word in 2020 / Jan. 22

January 22nd, 2020

We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/

Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 9:1-13; Acts 13:1-25; Psalm 21, Genesis 46-47. And if you hadn’t noticed – you’ve already completed reading 5% of the entire Scripture with today’s portion.

As I write this today, I am reminded of a repeated motif in Scripture which gets repeatedly overlooked. As in the 10 plagues which will come when God is ready to liberate Israel from Egyptian bondage, so here: God’s people are most often KEPT in the World’s trials, not utterly exempted from them.

If our faith is always bound up with God keeping us from trial, temptation and trouble, we will find ourselves doubting God at every turn – every time something grievous or overwhelming enters our lives. But He has not promised to keep us from all these things, but to keep us in them!

So all of Egypt and Canaan were suffering under this famine. And God’s chosen race was not exempted from it. Instead, what they were to find out, is that God had made provision for them – well ahead. And that, by redeeming for their good the very sin they had committed in selling Joseph into slavery. That doesn’t mitigate their sin. Because God can and does bring good out of evil is no justification for evil. But it does show how in His faithfulness to His people and His promises, even in our failures – He has made provision for us.

We may well witness the collapse of Western Culture as we know it. I don’t know. We may well see our political system undo itself or face ecological, biological or economic disaster. Individually and as a people there may be hard and dark days ahead that we never imagined. Individually you or I may suffer all forms of physical maladies, weaknesses, doubts, fear, confusion, distresses and challenges. But our God is faithful. Like preserving Noah in the Flood, or Israel during this famine – our God knows His own, and keeps His own. In the very midst of judgment and/or tragedy. He makes a table for us, in the very presence of our enemies. (Ps. 23:5)

What a good God we serve.