Category: Published

Isaiah 9:2-7 NIV  The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Observation

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity.”  No matter what translation you use, this place in Scripture is arresting.  In these times of upheaval, war and tragedy, doesn’t your soul ache for peace that will never end and One Who can truly rule with peace, fairness and justice?  It seems so impossible, so hopeless, when we look at our turbulent world, our own society’s norms and sense of security up ended, the anger and division evident in public demonstrations, all the trauma from broken relationships, war, natural disasters, and terror attacks. Doesn’t your heart cry out for a respite, time to recover, freedom from being on the alert every moment, a return to feeling safe and secure?  How do we answer when asked, “Where is God?  How can a good God allow this to happen?” The “fixing” of it all seems insurmountable. Where would one even start?

Impact on Me

I think each of us starts with considering and judging our own condition and where each one of us stands with Jesus because He was always – even before creation – God’s answer, God’s fix, God’s eternal unfailing King of peace, fairness and justice. Every Christmas when I hear this Scripture, I have to ask myself who is my king, to whom am I submitted, where is my hope, on whom can I depend?  I can be ruled and moved by earthly governments, powers, authorities, circumstances or by the One called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  I can be first a citizen of the United States or first a citizen of Heaven. I make that choice. Jesus was born and lived under two oppressive, unjust, murderous ruling powers – the Romans and the Sanhedrin – but, through faithfulness and obedience to God’s rule, His plan, managed to become the pivot point on which my (and your) eternal destination rests because He simply chose to be first a citizen of Heaven. 

I do not ignore my responsibilities as a citizen of my country and am not unmoved by the actions of earthly ruling authorities; I strive to honor God in obeying the laws and praying for unity and my leaders to be ruled by Heaven (rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s). I also remember Daniel’s prayer (see below) and find peace and comfort in knowing that, regardless of the circumstances – what I see and how we as people have messed things up – God controls the destiny of all nations and people. Because He has assigned me in the United States, He has a purpose for me here and, if I will be like Jesus and choose to be first a citizen of Heaven in all I do, perhaps others will chose to emigrate and also become citizens of Heaven. All of this is possible because this child was born to us, given to us as a gift. What an awesome gift He is!

Prayer

Lord, Savior, Immanuel, Perfect Lamb, You came as a baby with Your future set out before creation.  Never let me forget that Christmas was the beginning of the fulfillment of this Scripture, Immanuel coming to earth to dwell among us.  I choose to set my heart, soul and mind to be always first a citizen of Heaven, to put my hope in You as the One Who controls all destinies, to put my faith in the One You have chosen to rule and allow His light to pierce the darkness around me, to embrace this Son given to us and rejoice as I allow His kingdom to rule in me and spill over on everyone I meet, everyone I hug, everyone who will hear You speak through me. I pray this all in the name of Jesus. Make it so.

Daniel 2:20-23 NIV  Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.

Matthew 6:9-15 AMP  ⁹ Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.  ¹⁰  Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.  ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors [letting go of both the wrong and the resentment].  ¹³ And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]’

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others [nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God], then your Father will not forgive your trespasses.

Observation

We memorize verses 9-13 above at a very young age.  This is Jesus teaching His disciples how to pray simply and effectively.  How very rarely we include in that memorization the 2 verses following this familiar passage. We need to take note that some version of the word “forgive” (e.g., forgiven, forgiveness) appears 40 times in the Gospels.  As Messiah, Jesus lived and died for forgiveness and salvation to flow into and out of us freely.  According to Jesus, the unwillingness to forgive leads to “nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God.” This results in leaving our own sins unforgiven. Jesus is not asking us to forgive only because it will release someone else.  He is asking us to forgive because ultimately it releases, frees and heals us. 

Jesus’ meaning of verses 14-15 are expanded by Him in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18).  The servant who was forgiven much and released from his debt proceeded to unmercifully turn with unforgiveness on his own debtor who owed little.  This story tells us that his lack of gratitude and withholding of mercy was noticed and ended up with his huge debt being reinstated.  The Bible Point of this story is Matthew 6:14-15!   This does not mean that we condone sin.  Absolutely not!  It does mean that we approach and deal with sin in love with healed hearts because we have forgiven and released the hurt.

Impact on Me

Forgiving others is often not easy.  It can be easier when I believe the injury was accidental or caused by a misinterpretation or when the person is expressing regret or sorrow over the hurt.  However, when I am hurt or embarrassed or shamed by another who is not asking for forgiveness or caring about the injury to me – in other words, “their reckless and willful sins” which make them not innocent in my sight – this is a different matter.  That voice inside that wants to lead me astray will say, “They don’t deserve to be forgiven!” or “Teach them a lesson by hurting them back!” or “It is your right to hold a grudge.”  But, I believe that leads to “nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God.”

I have had many opportunities in my life to withhold forgiveness – times when I was unjustly accused or a target of anger or otherwise hurt, embarrassed or shamed.  The Holy Spirit made me aware in these times that Jesus did not qualify forgiving with “for those who deserve it”.  The servant who owed much did not deserve to have his debt forgiven.  It was because he would not be merciful and forgiving in gratitude for his release that his debt returned upon him.  Don’t I have the same choice?  I gladly receive the salvation and forgiveness provided by Jesus on the Cross – given when I did not deserve it because of my reckless and willful sins.  How can I be selfish with mercy and forgiveness for others in that same place when He was so generous with me?    

Prayer

Lord God, Everlasting Father, Redeemer, Teacher, Lover of my soul, the only inside voice I want to hear is Yours.  When I want to be selfish with mercy, grace and forgiveness, remind me of my filthy condition when I first came to embrace Your salvation.  Help me to see past the ugliness that is the evidence of a soul in anguish because it has not yet embraced You.  May Your love, grace, mercy and forgiveness be my story and the epitaph of my life.  Make it so, in Jesus’ name.

Romans 15:13 NIV May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 JBP May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in your faith, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, your whole life and outlook may be radiant with hope.

Romans 15:13 MSG Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

Romans 15:13 AMP May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Observation

I first found this verse when I was in a hospital ICU waiting room in 1984. Our 15-year-old daughter had been in a serious car accident.  One of her spinal vertebrates was crushed.  The prognosis was “best case” that she would have serious organ and nerve damage causing her to never walk again.  The “worst case” was she would be quadriplegic.  There was no way for the doctors at the beginning of this journey to predict what other organ or soft tissue damage might be revealed later related to the accident.  We just had to wait and see.  Also, at the time, we were self-employed in the fishing industry.  We had no health insurance because it was prohibitively expensive (both because of our industry and self-employment).   We were facing months in the hospital.  We had every human reason to feel hopeless and helpless. We needed nothing less than a multi-faceted miracle.

Both my husband and I had grown up in church. However, our understanding of God was that His holiness created a great chasm that kept Him distant, aloof and disappointed in our human weaknesses. Thankfully, we had embraced a personal relationship with Jesus just one year prior to this event.   The only carrying-sized Bible I owned was an Amplified version.  I liked this version because I was new to reading Scripture and the Amplified version gave me more insight into the shades of meaning in the original words, something other translations didn’t provide.  While sitting in that ICU waiting room, I was particularly interested in what God had to say about hope – something in such very short supply – so I was arrested by this verse. How could my hope “abound and be overflowing (bubbling over)” in that hospital ICU?

Impact on Me

The idea of an approachable God was totally new to me. I grew up knowing that God was holy, all powerful and untouchable – a good God, but inaccessible, not involved personally or intimately with my life. I knew that Jesus had died for our sins, but had no sense of being individually forgiven or His eyes on me as His beloved.  I began to hope against hope that this verse was true – that God cared about me, would hear me, would respond to my need, would forgive and overcome my weakness, would even be miraculous in this circumstance. I was not brave, courageous, wise or full of faith; I was desperate, with nowhere else to turn.  Yet in that moment, our gracious, loving, amazing God filled me with His hope and proceeded to provide miraculously for us. I found that “desperate, with nowhere else to turn” was my best place to be because it opened the floodgates of Heaven to fill my emptiness with hope and faith. Yes, we did get a miracle or two – physical and financial.

In this experience I learned that God does not want OR need me to be seasoned or perfect in faith, obedience, motive or “strong” enough to figure out how to fix it, overcome in my own strength. work it out on my own, or help Him by coming up with my own plan in place of His. He simply asks me ALWAYS to need Him, to turn to and seek Him, to rely on Him, to listen to and obey Him, to trust Him in all circumstances, to be that living sacrifice of Romans 12:1 knowing that the cost to me will be worth the benefit to Him, His kingdom and, ultimately, to me. I demonstrate my gratitude by believing, trusting and obeying His word when I am desperate and when I things are going well.

PRAYER

Lord God, You are Holy, majestic, eternal, all-powerful, all-merciful, all-loving, ever faithful. The greatest joy of my life is to know that I am Yours and You are mine, that I am Your beloved. May I trust that You are still working all things together for good when life seems to be chaotic and painful. May I see with the eyes of Jesus, Who saw beyond the pain and suffering of His death to the glory, grace, redemption, salvation, and healing it would unleash.  May I always submit all I am and do to You, keeping in sync with Your plans and Your will and purpose for me so that You will be glorified in my life. Give me the courage to choose to say “Yes” and to continue in that “Yes” regardless of personal cost.  Make it so, praying all in the name of Jesus.

Matthew 5:13-16 NIV 13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16 MSG. Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

Observation

I love the Sermon on the Mount!  We are told so many times throughout the Bible in broad and general terms to love, serve, honor, and obey God. In these 3 chapters of Matthew, Jesus lays out clearly some real, practical, difficult, often seemingly impossible instructions on how to love, serve, honor, and obey God in our day-to-day living!  (See also a similar passage from Romans 12 below.). Not surprisingly, we are challenged by this teaching to exchange our human perspective for Jesus’ point of view:

* responding according to the heart of God to life’s challenges, events, experiences, relationship ups and downs,

* submitting our lives, our status, our social acceptance, our resources and even our futures in a way that fulfills God’s will and purposes rather than our own,

* becoming the lantern through which His light shines clearly and the salt that enhances His flavor in all our actions and words. 

We are asked to “simply” exchange our earthly culture for a heavenly one – offering up our substance, our pride, our accomplishments, our status, our rights, our very lives to fulfill God’s will and purpose through worshipping Him and serving others (both lovable and unlovable).  This is not so simple or easy for us – trusting God enough to be willing to trade all temporal, real, tangible, experiential rewards for the invisible eternal rewards promised by God. It is especially challenging for us as Americans raised in a culture that values and praises personal achievement, visible productivity, recognizable individual accomplishment, and personal rights and freedoms.  We also cherish and don’t easily lay down those rights and freedoms we feel we have earned, deserved or received as a privilege of being born here.

This teaching of Jesus will ask us to exchange:

• judgment with mercy,
• bravado and pride with humility,
• selfishness with selflessness,
• storing up with sacrificial giving,
• traditions of compromise with simple pure worship and service, and
• surrendering my plan for my life in order to submit to His plan for me.

In making these choices, we will allow the Holy Spirit to clean off the glass of the lantern of me through which Jesus shines.  It will also allow Him to make us into the seasoning that brings out the flavor of God without us judging which conclave of darkness deserves the light and who gets to sit at the table to eat. 

We all are simply asked to embrace the redemptive, loving, gracious heart of God toward “whosoever will come” by demonstrating our love and trust in Him and His plan for each of us through our investment of time, talent and resources (and setting aside our rights) in loving, serving and following Him by selflessly serving others – both friend and foe.  He is asking us to exchange the natural for the supernatural, the temporal for the eternal, the imperfect life here for the perfect life in Christ.

Impact on Me

I characterize myself as a recovering over-achieving perfectionist who relapses more often than I like to admit. While I find so many of the instructions in the Sermon on the Mount to be hard to embrace, this sermon is in red letters in my Bible and, therefore, Jesus speaking to me.  It should be so simple to just be the lantern, to just keep the glass clean and clear so Jesus can shine through to pierce the darkness and redeem and rescue whomever will respond, but like so many other humans now and in all history, I find myself complicating matters sometimes by hankering after a more visible, productive, important or prestigious role in the Light-bearing or by judging which person deserves to be invited to sit at the table and taste to see that the Lord is good. 

Another complication arises when I allow the glass of my lantern to become obscured with filth – sin, judgment, pride, a desire for recognition, the decoration of religious traditions, or the praise of men.  Or I neglect to clean my own glass because I am criticizing the glass cleaning of others around me (that removing a splinter from another’s eye when I have a telephone pole in my own). In all of this, I dim or distort the Light which is Jesus because I am forgetting what a privilege it is for me to be included in the Light-bearing process at all! 

If I were lost in the darkness, I would not care about whether the light was a lighthouse, flashlight, a lantern, a candle. I would see the light alone as my way out of the darkness.  As salt, I need to be a mere sprinkle so as not to overwhelm the flavor of the true spirit and soul food that is Christ. So, my challenge is:

• to keep it simple,
• to keep the glass of my lantern so clean, clear and unobstructed that I am invisible as He shines through me,
• to be a pinch of salt so that my life enhances the taste of God it provides,
• to remember that my role is designed by God and the perfect way for me to fulfill His will and purpose in my life and the lives around me.
  
  So, it appears my choice is either, “Yes, Lord, help me to submit to Your teaching, allow You to change me, so I will see with Your eyes, love with Your heart, obey Your instruction and become more like You,” or “No thanks. Too hard. Not interested. Can’t trust that You are faithful and able to come through.  I’ve got my own plans, rights and freedoms that I am not willing to give up. I’ll go with what seems reasonable, acceptable, doable – what seems right in my own eyes.”  When I lay it out this way, there is only one choice, a choice that is only possible because God has the grace to forgive me when I fail and sustain, strengthen, renew, refresh, change, teach me through the power and presence of His Holy Spirit working in and through me. 

Prayer

Lord God, Gracious and Merciful Father, may I be quick to repent when I fail, stay pliable in Your hands and be merely the best vessel and perfect pinch of seasoning so that Your perfect will and purpose can be achieved in and through me. I pray this all in Jesus’ name. Make it so.

Job 40:1-8 MSG ^1-2 God then confronted Job directly: “Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?”  ^3-5 Job answered: “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”  ^6-7 God addressed Job next from the eye of the storm, and this is what he said: “I have some more questions for you, and I want straight answers. ⁸ “Do you presume to tell me what I’m doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint?

Observation

The Book of Job is one of the Wisdom Books of our Bible (Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are the others).  As I see it, Proverbs generally tells us that embracing Wisdom and submitting obediently to God will bring blessing and honor in this life and after; in other words, the evil suffer, the righteous are rewarded, life is fair and God is just (according to our sense of justice).   Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, tells us that life is not always fair, the evil may be unjustly rewarded in this life, the innocent may suffer unjustly, life is as meaningless as a puff of smoke without the fear of God and God is just (regardless of what we think).  Job tells us God never promised life would be easy or make sense or seem like a just reward for our obedience, but, nonetheless, regardless of circumstances, God has purpose is our lives and is just.

Throughout the book of Job, we find his friends are preaching Proverbs (suffering indicates sin in your life so admit it and quit it so God can bless you) and Job is preaching Ecclesiastes as he scrapes his boils (What did I do to deserve this?!  I am innocent and being unfairly treated!).  Both propose that God’s response to us is performance-based.  If that were so, why did God allow the Satan to inflict such suffering and pain on Job?   God called him righteous.

We have to wait until the end of the book of Job for God to weigh in and bring perspective!   ““Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  ⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?  ⁶ On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”  (Job 38:4-7 NIV)

God essentially asks Job what man is qualified to question why He does what He does and how He determines if the cost to us is worth the price of fulfilling His eternal plan for the ultimate redemption of all creation.  Our perspective is so small and limited, usually only extending to the limits of the cost to us.  In the book of Job, God is asking Job (us) to fully submit to Him (period).  He is asking us to trust in Him absolutely – His wisdom, His justice, His love for us – regardless of the circumstances we may face.

Impact on Me

The book of Job has always been a challenge for me.  I would read through feeling uncomfortable with Job’s accusations of unfair treatment by God and being thankful that I didn’t have boils to scrape and friends like his to encourage me.  None of the friend’s arguments seemed like a realistic life view to me.  If life is fair and we get just what we deserve, why did God allow Satan to afflict Job – “Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”?

For me, the Wisdom Books swing the pendulum from the Proverbs view of “life is fair & God is just” to the opposite Ecclesiastes proposal that “life is vanity and you can’t expect it to be just or fulfilling without God” to the Job center “whether I am blessed or troubled, I will trust in and rely on God’s justice and His wisdom regarding how my life can best serve His will and purpose”. 

Jesus did not promise me that life would be full of only blessing and favor.  As a matter of fact, He promised quite the opposite, predicting I would run into trouble and fail (thank you, God, for inventing repentance, redemption, and reconciliation because I need it every day!) while allowing Himself to pay the price for it all.  Jesus said, “I have told you all this so that you may find your peace in me. You will find trouble in the world—but, never lose heart, I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33).   

My dearest heart’s desire is to give Him joy in His heart by trusting in His wisdom regarding my life and how I serve Him. I want to be content in my calling and set aside judging what is fair or unfair – what I think I rightly deserve according to my efforts, skill, or level of investment, coveting the giftings of others while neglecting my own, questioning His wisdom regarding the weight of my burden, my cross (or bounty of my provision or reward) as compared to another.

Life is not defined by Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Job alone. So, I need to:

• accept that there is no simplistic, formulaic, entirely predictable course to the beautiful and perfect blessed life free from trouble for me!  
• recognize that Satan is the source of suffering and God the source of grace, comfort and deliverance.
• choose to honor and obey God regardless of the circumstances of my life, letting God choose how He can fit me into His perfect plan.

The bottom line for me is God is sovereign and just – period. 

Prayer

Lord, God, Creator of the Universe, Faithful and Just, to You I give all praise, glory and honor. This is what I want to learn from the book of Job:  Because God is just, He loves everyone equally.  He has written me into His story, His plan for redemption and, when called upon to do my part, I want to say, “YES!”, and be faithful to follow through whether it leads to blessing or sacrifice here on earth, knowing that He will be with me always providing the wisdom, strength and ability to do what He is asking, so I can “count it all joy” as I endure to become that good and faithful servant.  In Jesus’ name I pray.

James 1:5-8 JBP.  [The Christian can even welcome trouble] When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God—who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty—and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God’s help or not. The man who trusts God, but with inward reservations, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the wind one moment and driven back the next. That sort of man cannot hope to receive anything from God, and the life of a man of divided loyalty will reveal instability at every turn.