Archive for the ‘Trust’ Category

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Genesis 17:1

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

This was the confirmation verse (a verse given specially at the time when He publicly confessed his faith in Christ) for the first man at whose funeral I officiated today.

God speaks to Abram and says:

“I Am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless.”

Most translations use the word “blameless” here.  The original Hebrew literally means “complete,” or “whole.”  Elsewhere in the OT this word is translated as “with out blemish” and even “perfect.”

We often read this as a command.  The God who creates this covenant with Abram declares his just requirement of those who would be his:  Be whole. Be complete. Be without blemish. Be Perfect.  This is God’s demand.  That we would be perfect in love for him and for one another.  But who among us (let alone Abram!) has done this?

The original language does leave room for this to be a promise–not merely a command.  “Walk before me and you will be: complete, whole, without blemish, perfect.”  How wonderful. How true.

For there is one (and ONLY one) who has truly been totally whole, complete, without blemish and perfect: Jesus, the spotless “lamb of God.”  This Jesus lived a perfect life on our behalf.  His own righteousness, his own perfection is credited to our account as we trust in him.  And our wicked thoughts, words and actions are given over to him wholly (along with the deserved punishment for these acts) through his death on the cross.

The end result is that all who trust in Jesus are counted whole, complete, without blemish and even perfect in the sight of God on behalf of Jesus. wow.

Not only that, but Jesus has promised to one day return and raise our bodies from the ground making them gloriously new. On THAT day–we will experience, not merely by faith, but by sight our own wholeness, completion and perfection in Him.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

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Wisdom in Foolishness; Power in Weakness

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

The reading from 1 Corinthians for today really struck me.  “God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” I think of times standing beside a hospital bed of someone who is dying.  So often, I feel so utterly helpless.  There is nothing–NOTHING–I can do to change things, to take away pain, or illness, or weeping. Nothing.  I come in total weakness.  I am out of my league, with well-schooled doctors and nurses all around.  And yet I am there.  Called by God Himself, to share a Word that seems foolish in the face of what we all see before us: A weak and withering body, barely clinging to life.

The Word I share is the message of the Cross and the Resurrection.  I speak of Jesus’ death to take away our sins.  I speak of his resurrection, through which we too will share in the victory over death.  Because of the cross of Jesus, death will not be the last word for this dear person.  For she shall rise again when Christ returns in His glory.  But for now.  There is only the cross.  The suffering.  And I feel weak, even as I speak words I know to hold immeasurable power.

Posted in Being A Pastor, Bible Study and Meditation, Trust | No Comments »

God Responds to Prayer

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Yesterday, I mentioned how Hezekiah prayed boldly on behalf of his people who were threatened with destruction.  Today, I read about Hezekiah praying about his own health.  Check out Isaiah 38. Right after God’s deliverance from the hands of the Assyrians, it is reported that Hezekiah became ill.   And to add to the distress, the prophet Isaiah shows up with a message from God that Hezekiah will DIE from this illness;  He should “get his house in order.”  So what does Hezekiah do?

He just got a message from GOD telling him he was going to die.  And he doesn’t accept it!  He turns over on his bed with his face to the wall and prays and weeps before the LORD!  AND  God responds by CHANGING His verdict.  He sends Isaiah back to tell Hezekiah that God heard his prayers and will grant him another fifteen years of life.  WOW!  Now, I do not presume to comprehend how all this “works” in regard to the mystery of an all knowing God–who still listens to our prayers and appears to change his mind in response to them.  But….clearly He does respond to our prayers.  No. Not always in the way we’d like.  But should we not turn to God as did Hezekiah on multiple occasions and seek His blessing?

Absolutely.  Get praying! :-)

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Bold Prayer

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

I LOVE the story of Hezekiah in Isaiah 36-37.  Check it out. I especially love how Hezekiah prays in the face of adversity.  The city is being threatened.  They’ve received a letter of ultimatum from the enemy king, insulting the God of Israel, urging Israel not to trust in their God.  Hezekiah takes the letter into the Temple of the LORD “spreads it out” before the LORD, as if to say–”Look! see what they’re saying about you?  Are you going to take that?”  I LOVE it.

God responds to Hezekiah’s bold prayer by delivering the Israelites from the King of Assyria. Awesome.

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Believing In the Unseen

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

I know that lots of people have a hard time believing in Jesus.  (or even just a more general idea of “God”)  Like Thomas (see John 20) they need “proof” of something that they cannot see.  I was given a book by Soren Kierkegaard in which I read the following:

“If it were true–as conceited shrewdness, proud of not being deceived, thinks–that one should believe nothing which he cannot see by means of his physical eyes, then first and foremost one ought to give up believing in love.”

Well said, Soren!   One can surely not “see” love.  Many have a rather hard time even defining it. (I’ve asked many to do so, and they usually stammer and stutter for a while.)   Yet, surely, most believe that “love” exists.  They have “felt it” or experienced it in some way.  But that still does not prove it’s existence to one outside of their own experience.  So it is a decent example of something that can be “believed in” without visible proof.

Even more.  If one grants the existence of love, one must then wrestle with the question:  “Where does such a thing as love come from?”   It would seem a universal human experience, this thing called love.  It is sought after and longed for even when not directly experienced.  Some say it is even a basic human need.  This would seem to speak to something beyond the human experience.  An origin for love.  The Origin for love.  The One who is, Himself, love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son  into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10

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More Good Stuff From Isaiah

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Isaiah 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

God tells his people what is best: to repent and rest in His protection.  They had put their trust in idols. They had put their trust in other nations to deliver them from pending warfare.  They SHOULD have trusted in the LORD.

This speaks to the constant temptation to take things into our own hands, rather than simply “wait on God”  to provide for or rescue us.   Turn away from self-reliance.  Turn away from reliance on any other person, place or thing.  Rest, trust in God’s perfect love and provision for you.

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Perfect Peace

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

It was like a surprise meeting with an old friend.  I was reading in Isaiah and my eyes ran across a verse I had long ago memorized–but had not recently recalled. 

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.”  (Isaiah 26:3)

Trust in the Lord and peace go hand in hand.  When our trust is firm, peace follows and fills us.  Trust sees through darkness and difficulty to the Source of life and hope beyond.  The Lord’s promises are sure.  We know that He will not leave us or forsake us.  Jesus was forsaken on the cross, so that we might never be.  So we know that in any time of challenge, God will remain with us and see us through to the other side, whether that be in this life or the next.

This is peace.  To know Jesus.  To rest in His promises.  To rest in Him.

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Abraham

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Last week in our mid-week worship time, we considered the journey of Abraham.  He is called “the father of all who believe,” because he trusted in God’s Word of promise and was obedient to God’s commands to leave his father’s homeland and to go to a new land that God would show him.  The bible says that Abraham believed God and that this trust was credited to Abraham as righteousness.  We, too, trust in God’s Word of Promise.  We believe that through Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave, our sins are forgiven and we are heirs of eternal life.  We believe, we trust, and the righteousness of Jesus is “credited to us.”

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Stand Firm

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

I’m reading through Isaiah and this verse struck me this morning:

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. Isaiah 7:9

The prophet was speaking words of both warning and encouragement to the nation of Judah in the face of the threat of national disaster.  He urged them to be calm, to not give into fear when the LORD, their God was with them.

There are at least two ways to apply this verse.  The first looks at our emotional, spiritual and mental state when we do not “stand firm in faith.”  The reality is that we have two options at every moment in the face of every hardship, threat or disaster.  We can give way to fear, or we can trust in the goodness, love and power of God in the face of the threat.  It may be easy to give into fear.  The physical, visible experience may be quite overpowering and difficult.  It may be especially hard to “see through” the experience to the Invisible, yet very real God, who continues to work things out for the good of those who love Him.  But we must.  If we give way to fear–we will be a mess.  Gone will be the peace, the confidence, the security that can help us to function when we most need our “wits about us.”  It is our trust in God in the midst of the “storms of life” that keeps us anchored to the only thing that is not tossing and turning in this troubled world.  When we let go of that trust–we will be swept away in the waves as well.

The second application of this is far more serious than our mental or emotional state at any given moment.  It deals with our very life and salvation.  It is “through faith” that we are saved from the ultimate disaster of an eternity apart from God.  It is “through faith” that we receive the blessings of forgiveness, righteousness and life that God gives to us on account of the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.  If we abandon faith, we abandon the means by which we receive and apprehend the promises of God and we are lost.  We will not stand firm forever, but will be lost.

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.

But these applications still look at this from the perspective of ME and what I get out of this faith thing.  They still fail to look at the object of our trust.  The reality is that we should trust God not because it will keep us the most calm or give us the most sense of peace.  We should not even trust God simply to avoid eternal destruction.  We should trust God, because God is worthy of our trust.

God IS good, loving and powerful.  He IS able to save us and provide eternal security, joy and peace.  He has proved His goodness in the giving of His Son on the cross.  He has given us His Spirit as a pledge of the inheritance that is ours through faith in Him.  God IS faithful and He will do what He has promised.

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Enoch

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

In our mid-week worship service last night we considered the Old Testament patriarch, Enoch.  You can read about him in the midst of the genealogy of Genesis 5.  (see also the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3.)  He’s also discussed in Hebrews 11.

By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

In Genesis, we read (twice) that Enoch “walked with God.”  Hebrews commends Enoch as a man of faith.  Earlier, the writer to the Hebrews says that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.“  Enoch, did not SEE God.  Yet he walked with God as though He did.  Such was his trust.

What an example for us!  Enoch demonstrated close companionship with the God who He could not see.  How much more may we “walk with God!”  We who have come to know fellowship with God through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.  We who have been given the very Spirit of God as a deposit, guaranteeing the eternal communion with God that is still to come, where we shall see God with our own eyes.

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