Archive for » October, 2004 «

Before Me

Sunday, October 31st, 2004 | Author:

“You shall have no other gods before Me”  Exodus 20:3

Before Me – You wouldn’t suspect that this would give us any translation problems but the truth is that this two-word phrase that has created all kinds of difficulties.  It doesn’t seem to mean “except me”.  It might mean “against me” with an undertone of hostility (like Genesis 16:12).  Or it might mean “beside me” with the sense of “in preference to me”.  But no matter what the exact translation, the thought is the same as God’s pronouncement in Isaiah 42:8.  God doesn’t share the status of Who He is with anyone and anything.

So what does the first commandment tell us?  It says that the basis of all morality is God.  The basis of all morality is not about ethical principles or rules.  It is not found in government or regulation or legislation.  It is found in the personal God named Yahweh (Jehovah).  It says that if you want a real moral foundation, it must be based on this God who must come first above and before anything else in life.  In fact, the first commandment implies that if God comes absolutely first in everything, all the rest of your life will be just fine.

Christians endorse this belief.  That’s why they are amazed at the current cultural unrest over the Ten Commandments.  They know that morality is ultimately grounded in the person of God.  Take God out and you find yourself slipping down the slope to the lowest common denominator; a collective heart that wants only license to do whatever it wishes.  That is not morality no matter what the “laws” say.  God sets the standard, not us.  And the first standard is the recognition that He is first.

Christians argue for this belief.  But maybe there wouldn’t be a need for an argument if Christians lived the belief.  Maybe the power of example would be so strong that no one could imagine how you could live any other way.  If God were absolutely first, always and in everything, what would change for you and me?

If God were absolutely first, would I ever lie or exaggerate?

Would I cheat or steal from anyone anytime anywhere?

Would I think about how to take advantage of others?

Would I consider my possessions and finances mine to do with as I please?

Would I refuse, ignore or deny help to others no matter what the cost to me?

Would I plunder God’s creation for profit?

Would I live a compartmentalized life?

Would I treat others as though they were not God’s image?

Would I worry?

How does my life reflect “no other gods”?  It’s not optional, you know.

 

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Purity of heart

Saturday, October 30th, 2004 | Author:

“He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.”  Proverbs 22:11

Purity of heart – Clean clear through.  The Hebrew word tahor is about ritual purity.  It describes all those Old Testament dietary laws about clean foods.  It covers the laws about events in life that defile a person.  It’s all about who can enter into worship.  But in this verse we learn something deeper.  God wants our outward behavior to be clean.  He wants it to conform to His laws about sanctified living.  But He is looking for more than outward conformity.  He is looking for clean clear through – a purified heart.

Stevenson, an Old Testament scholar, points out that this verse is contrary to human experience.  Kings usually don’t make friends with people who are pure of heart and speak the truth.  Kings usually want to hear only what pleases them.  Stevenson suggests that the king in this verse is not a human ruler but rather God Himself, the ultimate King, who really does want His people to have pure hearts and truthful speech.  God loves those who seek to obey.  A pure heart is a description of total obedience.  Lev (heart) is the common Hebrew expression for the whole person.  That means words, thoughts and deeds; all sanctified to God.

So here’s the test.  Do you offer everything in your life to God in worship?  Do you talk one way when you are in God’s presence and another when you think He isn’t listening?  Do you act one way when you are worshipping and another way when you imagine you are outside the worship experience?  Do you think about things differently when you approach God compared to your usual thought processes?  Purity of heart covers all of you.  The verse says that God loves those whose lives are fully given to worship, who are ritually clean in everything they say, do and think. 

Life is worship.  And the worshipping life requires a clean heart.

Does that worry you?  Does it make you realize that some words, thoughts and deeds are not worthy of worship?  Do you suddenly get a pang of moral consciousness reminding you that you may not be living a completely worshipping life?  There is only one solution.  It’s David’s cry:  Lord, create in me a pure heart and clean hands.  I can’t do it on my own.  My heart will never be worshipfully pure unless God does the cleaning.

Time to pray.

 

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Free

Friday, October 29th, 2004 | Author:

“to set free those who are oppressed”  Luke 4:18 from Isaiah 61:1

Free – This is the Humpty Dumpty verse.  And it’s a bit more complicated than it looks.  What the text really says is something like this: to send forth in deliverance those who have been crushed by someone else.  If you have been broken into pieces (crushed), you are just like Humpty Dumpty.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put you back together again.  And by the way, neither can you!

Human beings cannot save themselves.  We who follow the Lord acknowledge that fact.  But did you realize that human beings cannot put themselves back together either?  That’s what this verse implies.

Have you been broken into pieces?  Then you will need someone who can send you away in deliverance from that bondage.  And it isn’t you!  It isn’t the therapist, the minister, the good friend or the support group.  They can help, but they are broken too.  Jesus is the only one who came to send you away delivered.

Once again there are two thoughts in this word.  The Hebrew, from Isaiah, is paqach.  It almost always means “to open”, like “opening your eyes”.  In fact, many of the uses in the Old Testament are about opening our eyes to God.  Here in Isaiah, it means to open the prison cells.  But isn’t it interesting that the first step toward deliverance is to open our mental and spiritual eyes to God. 

Luke uses a rather different expression.  He writes two words: aposteilai aphesei.  The first means, “to send forth”.  We get the word apostle from this root.  The second word means “release” and is generally used for “forgiveness”.  It almost always implies being changed from a slave to sin into a servant of God. 

So, how do we get free?  Not by our own efforts.  We Humpty Dumpties need to have Jesus show up and repair what’s been broken.  The first step is opening our eyes to God.  Then Jesus puts us back together and sends us forth forgiven.  That transformation means we have shifted masters.  Freedom is not unrestrained license.  It is deliverance under God.  Broken, repaired, released and serving.  That’s the plan.

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Oppressed

Thursday, October 28th, 2004 | Author:

“to set free those who are oppressed”  Luke 4:18 from Isaiah 61:1

Oppressed – Who are the oppressed?  Do you think about the citizens of third world countries who suffer who ruthless dictators?  Do you see imagines of people in Haiti or the Sudan?  Do you recall pictures of the homeless, the AIDS victims or abused children?  Just what does the Gospel have to say to these people?  Why would Jesus say that he came to set these people free?

In Isaiah, the word is asar.  It means, “to tie up, to bind, to imprison”.  If oppression has chained your body, you need to be set free.  But bondage isn’t just a physical condition.  It is also a spiritual and a mental condition.  And when Jesus comes to free you, he intends to make you free indeed.  His freedom reaches every part of who you are.

Luke wrote in Greek.  He used the word tethrausmenos.  It isn’t exactly the same as Isaiah’s meaning.  This Greek word means, “to be crushed or broken into pieces”.  But the grammar tells us that it should be read like this:  those who have, in the past, been broken into pieces by someone else.  You see, Luke used the Greek translation of the Old Testament for his quotation, so the meaning shifted just a bit.  Not everyone who is tied up is oppressed.  But everyone who is broken into pieces by someone else certainly is.  That’s what we need to see.  The ones around us who have been crushed by anything or anyone are the oppressed.  Jesus came to set those people free.

I have never been physically tied up.  I’ve never been in jail.  But I know oppression.  I know what it’s like to be broken into pieces.  I know what it feels like to be bound by addiction and sin.  I know the horror of not having a way out.  I might look like a free man on the outside, but I know what it’s like to be in prison on the inside.  Jesus came to set me free too.

Our world is filled with all sorts of bondage.  Not all of it seems like oppression.  Bondage to power, to money, to fame, to status, to beauty, to acknowledgement, to our religious and ethical images.  Bondage to spending, to anger, to depression, to self-indulgence.  There are lots of different kinds of ties.  And Jesus came to set us free from them all.

Where have you been crushed, broken into pieces?  There is One Who sets us free.  Only One.  Have you asked Him?

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Release

Wednesday, October 27th, 2004 | Author:

“He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives”  Luke 4:18 from Isaiah 61:1

Release –  Powerless!  That’s what I felt standing in front of the young man in the jail.  He was only a few years older than my youngest son, but he faced 35 years in prison.  35 years in a cell.  What does the word “release” say to this man?  What does God’s grace and freedom offer him?  Because if it doesn’t work here, it doesn’t work.

We are used to “spiritualizing” all this.  Jesus sets us free from sin, as though the only real prisons are the invisible walls of Satan’s deception.  Oh, those walls are real.  No doubt about that.  But what does the Gospel, the Good News, have to say to a seventeen year old who will spend the next 35 years behind bars?  Does it offer him hope?  Does it release him? What could I say to this man that would show him the heart of God?

The word in Isaiah is de ror.  It means “liberty” or “emancipation”.  Those who are captive long for one thing: liberty.  This word is translated into the Greek word aphesis, a word that means, “to cause to let go” or “to cause to set aside”.  It has shifted just a bit from “liberty”.  Now it is closer to “forgiveness”.  The shift is important.  Did you notice that Jesus (and Isaiah) does not say, “to proclaim freedom to the captives”?   Freedom is left for the next class of people, the downtrodden.  In our minds, we might imagine that captives want freedom.  But the Greek suggests something else.  These captives need someone to set aside the verdict.  They need pardon.  That is true liberty.  If I am imprisoned, simply opening the doors of the jail will not give me what I really need.  I might be “free”, but I will still be in bondage to my crime.  What I need more than anything else is pardon.  Then I will be free even if I am still behind bars.

How will this young man ever be able to live through the next 35 years without pardon?  How will he survive if all he has every day is guilt and sentence?  Sin has consequences.  Some of those consequences are visible in this life.  Sometimes sin puts us in visible jails.  But every sin makes us captives.  And what we need is pardon. 

Until Jesus pardoned me, I faced a life sentence.  I think we forget that.  We come and go from place to place.  We act as though we have liberty.  But the truth is that we stand in that jail cell facing life without parole unless we are pardoned.  The truth is that if this young man receives Jesus’ pardon, he will be the one released while we go on our way toward a prison without doors.  The truth is that his reality has stripped away all the pretending, all the phony nonsense.  He knows that life is all about pardon. 

So, how do I show him what it means to serve a God who pardons?  How does my life exhibit release from captivity?

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Trespasses

Tuesday, October 26th, 2004 | Author:

“And so my heavenly Father will do to you if you do not each one of you forgive from the heart your brother’s trespasses.”  Matthew 18:35

Trespasses – Jesus was dangerous, especially when it came to forgiveness.  Just how dangerous Jesus was can be seen in the choice of the word for “trespass”.  Matthew could have used parabasis, a word that means, “to break a rule, to commit a willful and deliberate sin.”  But that isn’t the word here.  The word in this verse is paraptoma, a word that means, “to fall by the wayside” and implies a transgression that is a mistake or a lapse in judgment or a fault.  Oh, it’s still wrong.  But it isn’t necessarily intentional or heinous sin.  It’s the “I made a mistake” kind of sin.

Now why does this word make Jesus so dangerous?  Jesus’ comment comes at the end of the parable about the king who forgives a huge debt to a servant but the servant refuses to forgive a small debt from his compatriot.  When the king hears this, what does he do?  He takes that ungrateful servant and throws him in prison, subjecting him to the torturers until he pays back all of the huge debt (which will be never, of course).  What’s dangerous here?  Jesus implies that God will commit anyone who does not forgive the smallest of errors to eternal punishment because of an ungrateful attitude.  If you tread on the mercy of God, even over the smallest mistakes of others, God remembers.  You have sealed your own punishment.

That is frightening – and very dangerous.  How many times have I held a tiny grudge over some stupid thing?  How many times have I let a mistake or a case of poor judgment become a festering resentment for another?  Where was the reflection of the incredible mercy God showed me?  Oh, I am quite willing to forgive the BIG things.  After all, magnanimous gestures make me look oh-so-good.  But Jesus focuses on the scruples.  He points to my ungrateful actions in the tiny details.  That resentment I hold on to because I wasn’t invited to your party.  That little affront I felt when you forgot to say “Thank you”.  Life affecting antagonisms in the little things.

Jesus says, “Forgive dangerously.  Let it all go.  God forgave you every indiscretion, every insult, every time you ignored His Spirit.  You must do the same.”

What tiny scruple do you need to address today?

 

 

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Baptism

Monday, October 25th, 2004 | Author:

“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  Mark 10:38

Baptism – The imagery of Jesus’ baptism is the imagery of the Exodus.  God brought His people through the waters of the Red Sea into the place where He would care for them – the wilderness.  In the wilderness, all of our survival skills are useless.  In the wilderness, we come to the end of ourselves, to the end of our self-sufficiency.  In the wilderness, we confront God.  And baptism, the passage from sin and death, is the way into the wilderness.

The story of Israel in the wilderness is the story of God’s faithfulness and our failure.  Over and over the children of the promise disobey.  In the wilderness, where they are to learn trust and obedience, they complain, they murmur against God, they test Him and they turn to idols.  And so the wilderness, the place where we are supposed to be most at home with a God who provides all we need, becomes the place where we display our lack of trust and our rebellion.  God intends the wilderness to become a place of refuge in Him but we make it a place of judgment.  In the wilderness, those who refuse God’s provision die.

Baptism is the entry into the place where we either trust in the Provider or we reap His judgment.  Baptism opens the door to the either/or character of the wilderness.  Have you ever wondered why the scapegoat (literally, the animal on whom the sins of the people were placed) is driven into the wilderness?  That animal is driven out into God’s place of judgment because the wilderness, God’s home, is the place where God deals with sin. 

Jesus knew that baptism would take him into the wilderness as the scapegoat for all Mankind.  Jesus knew that baptism identified him as the true Israel, the one who would be obedient unto death, the one who would fulfill God’s vision of a holy priesthood for others. 

When Jesus asks, “Are you able to be baptized with my baptism?” he is asking a question that has only one answer.  “No, Lord, I cannot bear the sins of the world as you will.  I cannot be baptized in this way.  I am not the true Israel.”

Only one can be baptized in this way.  Many crossed the Red Sea but none died to self.  Many came to John but none were chosen as the Son.  “But you, Lord, you are the true Son.  I am not worthy.  But you are worthy.  My baptism is only in recognition of your obedience.  Without your sacrifice, it means nothing.  You took the curse so that I could cross over.”

If you are living on the other side of baptism, you are at home in the wilderness, under the care of God. 

 

 

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Baptism

Sunday, October 24th, 2004 | Author:

“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  Mark 10:38

Baptism – Jesus puts this question to all of us.  Most of us don’t have any idea what he is really asking, so we respond just like the disciples.  “Oh, yes, Lord.  I am able.”  Our answers are disappointing because they demonstrate the shallowness of our spirituality.  Do you know what Jesus is talking about?   I used to think that I did.  One day God had to lead me into the wilderness in order for me to understand.  Let’s look a little deeper and see what’s really going on here.

Baptism is a Greek word that was moved intact into English.  The Greek is baptizo.  It was never translated.  It means, “to be submersed”.  It is usually found in religious contexts.  However, it can also mean, “to be overwhelmed, to be saturated”.  Baptism plays a very important role in the New Testament.  You might give some thought to relationship between baptism and death (see Romans).  But of all the baptisms in the Bible, none is more significant than the baptism of Jesus by John in the river Jordan.  What it symbolizes is so important that it sets the stage for all of the rest of Jesus’ ministry. 

Many years ago, Ulrich Mauser wrote a tiny little book called “Christ in the Wilderness”.  It has been out of print for years.  In that work, Mauser demonstrates that the baptism of Jesus is symbolic of two critical elements in God’s message to Man.  The first is that Jesus affirms his identity as the true Israel.  Just as Israel became a people of God through the baptism of crossing the Red Sea, Jesus takes on the role of the true Son by being baptized before his ministry begins.  Baptism is the event that moves Jesus from his preparation stage into the calling of God.

But baptism symbolizes something else.  That other thing is found here in this verse.  The children of Israel moved through the sea to emerge in the wilderness, a place where they were to learn complete and utter dependence of God, to embrace His rule and authority and to become a nation of priests.  They failed.  Their failure meant that the wilderness became a place of judgment and wrath.  When Jesus accepts baptism, he announces that he is ready to accept God’s judgment, a judgment that culminates in bearing the sin of the world on the cross.  To be baptized is to accept judgment.  That’s why Paul ties baptism to death. Baptism for the true Israel is the decision to die under the judgment of God. 

There is resurrection, but it is not my doing.  Resurrection is God’s doing.  My work is to die.  My choice is to put my life under God’s judgment, to trust Him completely whether or not I will exist.  That’s exactly what Jesus did.  He died for me.  And it started right at the baptism.

So, Jesus asks us, “Are you ready to be baptized with my baptism?”  I took on God’s judgment for you.  Will you now die for me?

(continued)

 

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Shame

Saturday, October 23rd, 2004 | Author:

“rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.”  Acts 5:41

Shame – Have you ever been treated shamefully?  Abused?  Slandered?  Insulted?  Treated without dignity?  Everyone has some story of shameful mistreatment.  But not everyone goes away rejoicing.  Today most of us hire an attorney.  The world’s way is to get even.  God’s way is to realize what a privilege He has given us.  It’s another example of God’s upside-down logic.

Several of the disciples are called before the religious court for proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.  The court takes the conservative position on the issue.  If these men are liars, they will eventually fail.  But if they proclaim the truth, it is better not to put them to death.  After all, you don’t want God upset.  So, the court orders them flogged and released.  This was no minor punishment.  They were beaten until the skin came off – whipped until they bled.  You and I would have the civil rights lawyers crawling all over this case. 

But the disciples leave, backs bleeding, rejoicing that they were considered worthy.  Can you imagine that?  They were so transformed by Christ that they did not consider themselves worthy to suffer for Him.  They rejoiced that God allowed them to be beaten as a testimony to Jesus.  The Greek word atimazo tells us that they were rejoicing because they experienced dishonorable treatment for His name’s sake. 

A lot of bad things happen in life.  A lot of things we generally don’t deserve at the hands of evil men.  But how many of us walk away from those shameful experiences praising God that our trials meant He thought us worthy to suffer.  We think suffering is unworthy.  We think it shouldn’t happen.  You see how backwards we think.  We can’t imagine that suffering has anything good about it.  We complain.  We sue.  We fight.  We cry out to God, “Oh, why did you let this happen Lord”.  But the disciples walked away from the prison saying, “Oh Lord, I never thought I would be worthy enough to follow your footsteps on this path.  Thank you, Lord, that you saw in me what I could not see.  I was worthy to carry Your name and to suffer for it.”   

If we met Peter and James and John on that day, we would probably shake our heads, thinking, “These men are crazy.  They were abused.  They should go to court and get a settlement.”  We would never understand why they were singing hymns of praise to God.  We would certainly never imagine that suffering was a worthy calling.  But we are a lot further away from the Master than they were. 

Who’s thinking clearly now?

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Rest

Friday, October 22nd, 2004 | Author:

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest”  Hebrews 4:11

Rest – On a day like this, I need rest.  Life gets overwhelming even when we are trying our best to live every moment in His presence.  Then I read this verse and I get even more perplexed.  This is an emphatic exhortation to do something in order to find rest.  The last thing I want when I need rest is to have to work harder to get it.  So, what in the world can this mean?

The author of Hebrews is recalling an Old Testament image.  In Hebrews 4:3, he recalls Psalm 95:11 in order to give us the context for this word for rest.  The Hebrew word is a form of nuach (sound like nu-ak).  It implies a settled security.  It is used to describe the ark “resting” on the mountain.  It describes God “resting” Adam in the Garden (putting him in place).  It is used to describe the Sabbath “rest”.  It’s more than ceasing from labor.  It’s the place where God’s very presence comforts and secures us.  Ultimately, this rest is the rest of heaven.  It is the “rest” of salvation in the presence of God.

Remember Noah.  The name Noah most likely comes from this same root.  Noah’s name means security and rest.  He is a man who grew to become what he was.  That’s the kind of man I want to be – to become what God named me to be.

So, what does it mean to say that I have to be diligent to enter this rest?  Back to Psalm 95.  God is describing the Israelites in the forty-year period in the wilderness.  He says that they will never enter His rest because they hardened their hearts, tested Him, continued to be disobedient and refused to know His ways.  Therefore, He withheld rest. 

I long for the safety and security, the peace and rest of God.  But I don’t have to work harder to get it.  I have to do what the Israelites didn’t do:  depend entirely on Him.  I need to let Him be my God, let Him provide for me, let Him show His glory and magnify and worship Who He is.  I need to know His ways and follow them.  That’s not work.  It’s life.

Want rest.  Live life God’s way.  You’ll get to practice resting before you get to heaven where rest is the order of the day.

 

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