THEN

It is important to see the Bible as a whole not simply unrelated chapters and verses. Writers were telling a story not providing snippets from which to pick and choose. True meaning is found in context.

With that in mind, I was struck when I noticed how Matthew's story changes between chapters 3 and 4. At the end of 3, Jesus had just 'fulfilled all righteousness' by being baptized, seen the Spirit of God descend and heard a voice from heaven say, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”. Wow, what an amazing experience!

But don't put the book away yet. Chapter 4 begins with the word 'THEN". The story continues. After Jesus follows God's plan THEN He is led by the Spirit to a desert boot camp. After He is publicly claimed as Son by God THEN the devil mocks Him with 'if you are the Son of God'. After the heavens are opened to Him THEN Satan entices Jesus to prove His power by using it for His own gain. In every situation Jesus was prepared for the THEN?

Working in the world of computer development, THEN is an important part of what we do. If A THEN B. Look for a condition THEN you get the result you establish. However, as Matthew tells us, the THEN may not be the results we expect. We imagine, "If God is pleased THEN I get blessings" or "If God's child THEN I should never experience troubles". Isn't that how we think God should work?

God did not make us like computers to perform by a script. Instead we must choose how we will handle the THEN. The circumstances were defined but Jesus’ attitude was always obedience. It is a change of perspective for me to see it as "If obedient THEN more opportunities to be obedient".

The Breath of Life

...then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils THE BREATH OF LIFE, and the man became a living creature. Genesis 2:7

God formed man from the ground. Not with a shovel to make a pile of dirt but as a potter forms something of use. Trying to grasp the image of the all mighty God leaning over to work the dirt by hand. Everything else He spoke into being but man he shaped, molded, formed, created each detail. Then the intimate connection between God and man took place. God gave man the breath of life. He passed to us the actual spirit of God. He made us in His image and gave us His Spirit.

How can I not be moved by that? God is the very breath I breath. He is a close as the air that surrounds me. While I do not often think of my physical breathing, it becomes all I am able to think about when it is cut off. How long do I go without the breath of life? How can I not be moved by that?

Forgetting to Remember

"God blessed the seventh day and made it holy..."

Genesis 2:2 and Exodus 20:11

While creating an entire universe in the beginning of Genesis, the one thing deemed holy was the seventh day. Everything else on the list was good or even very good but because God rested from his work on the seventh day it became holy. Okay, so God makes everything and it is good but when He stops making, it is holy?

Later in Exodus when God is listing those pesky 10 commandments to Moses on how to live in this world, the fourth one down tells us - "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". Why is it holy? This happens to be one of two commandments God takes a moment to explain. Like any good Father, his explanation is "Because I made it that way". Six days work then on the seventh rest. Make one day different each week. Set aside and join me.

Has this become the least observed commandment? Wonder how many modern day Christian households define rest on a Sunday morning preparing for church? Or how many mom's feel rejuvenated after that big Sunday meal? Or what percentage of restaurant open because of the after church rush?

God rested then gave us rest. Holy was not in the doing but it was in the stopping. We are convinced that the world depends on us so we must GO every waking moment. God set a rhythm to everything, including us. He did not build a machine but someone to live in relationship.

Whether your Sabbath is Sunday, Saturday or Thursday, is there a day that is holy (set apart) in your life? Is there day you rest and enjoy? Is there any moment that time slides by with no doing but just being? I know my answer to those questions need a lot of work rest.

In the beginning God created...

Recently started my fourth read through the Bible and I cannot get out of the first chapter of Genesis. The creation story provides so much to consider. So much said, so much left unsaid.

God speaks and from nothing an entire universe comes into existence. Was it six 24-hour days or six billion years called six days? Either way the power to create something from nothing leaves any comprehension or research of that creation limited to what the owner of that process wants to convey.

God ordered the universe.
Day, night, weeks, seasons, years - God built time.
Land, sea, sky - God built space and place.
Birds, fish, animals, plants, trees, us - God built life.

Big bang? What started the bang?
Evolution? What kicked off the first beat of life in the primordial ooze?

"In the beginning God created...". These five words set the foundation for the rest of the Bible and the rest of history. Those five words are the prerequisite to the everything else. If I have trouble comprehending something else in the Bible or something in life, consider those words in Genesis 1.

God's creation, God's plan, God's power, God's rule.

If only that were my starting point for the way I try to see everything.

It is all God's. It was nothing then God created. I was nothing then God created. Anything I 'have', God created. Anything I experience, God created. Just understanding it all is His creation, His plan, His power, His rule would make sense why I have so much trouble making those things mine.

IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED...

Be Ye Perfect

Recently completed “Mere Christianity” a classic by C.S. Lewis. His writing still rattles around in my brain about a verse that has rattled around in my heart even longer.

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48.

Lewis’ words took me to task.

I find a good many people have been bothered by what I said about Our Lord’s words, ‘Be ye perfect’. Some people seem to think this means ‘Unless you are perfect, I will not help you.’; and as we cannot be perfect, our position is hopeless. But I do not think He did mean that. I think He meant ‘The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less: but I will give you nothing less.’

That is why He warned people to ‘count the cost’ before becoming Christians. ‘Make no mistake,’ He says, ‘if you let me I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest until you are literally perfect – until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.’

An yet this Helper who will be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make to do the simplest duty. Every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk yet no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son.

You must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.

Ancient Paths

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16



When not sure which way to go? Why do I seek my own way when there are ancient paths to follow?

There is no need for multi-lane super highways. These are narrow trails each well worn & built up by godly men and women over generations. Passageways that may be slow to follow but speed is not always in God’s plan as much as mine. Not the most direct routes but they pass amazing views of Gods work along the way.

There are no signs to mark the entrance because we are told to ask the way. He wants to walk along with us. Show the way I was created to follow.

God does not call one to blaze new trails as often as I may think.

Lord, show me the ancient and good paths you have laid out. Then remind me when I stray from them.

The Sea

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine De Saint Exupery

How often do we as Christians wrap ourselves in the details of building the ship instead of casting the vision of the endless immensity of the sea? If God's endless immense love is not communicated then the acts of discipleship in ones life will never find their target. I blush at how often I have beat the drum of reading the Bible or finding your quite time or getting involved in service but spent too little time kendeling a desire to be like Christ.

What is it like for even a small moment in time when my heart is touched by God? Why does the creator of an entire universe allow me to draw near? Where does this amazing peace come from when everything seems to fall apart around me? What happens when my eyes open to see what God is really doing around me? What does it really feel like when God connects my heart with another heart to share their load?

That is what I need to find out how to say. Then reading the Bible, quite time, service, solitude, worship and prayer will be joyous simple tasks that build the ship to float along on God's endless sea.

Beyond the Sun

This week, I will start leading a group through a look at Tommy Nelson’s study of Ecclesiastes (A Life Well Lived: Living with a Perfect God in an Imperfect World). Always love this book of the Bible even though it seems so bleak. I guess it because we get a chance to share the wisdom of Solomon and who else has received God’s gift more abundantly. Solomon had more wisdom, wealth, influence, power and everything else then any of us will ever have and he comes to one conclusion over and over and over again…it is all meaningless. No matter what we do under the sun we end up right where we started, dust.

Life is a treadmill.

Get up, cup of coffee, breakfast, shower, brush teeth, drive to work, …, repeat, repeat, repeat. Even when we break up our routines with the special things like holidays or vacations, those are really just repeats done on a less frequent basis. No matter how much I cut my hair, do the laundry, trim the lawn or rake the leaves, I am relegated to repeat.

Ah, but maybe we live for the pleasures of life. Solomon walked through the world of pleasure on a truly epic scale. He blew the doors off with countless parties, a thousand women, grand building projects, multitude of servants, along with more gold and silver then he could count. Everything his mind could conceive - he did. He had the resources to do anything his heart desired. He undertook one of the world’s great experiments and actually tried it all. And yet his words still echo, meaningless.

The chase for more and more and more and more never reaches the conclusion we are after. The consuming focus on this momentary visit to this place called earth has never changed the results. Wise or fool, rich or poor, driven or lazy, all come to the same outcome. We die, our friends gather and remember us for an hour, grab a sandwich on the way back to the office then by the next morning everyone has returned to the treadmill. Our stuff is handed off to someone else and the wind blows through and it was as if we never existed. As Solomon found out, everything under the sun is meaningless.

So why do I love this depressing look at life? Because the wise Solomon did find an answer in his experiment. He shares with us an antidote other then a leap from the nearest tall building. He tells us simply - Enjoy!! Enjoy what God has given you. The simple things like eat, drink and work. These really are where the physical world actually makes sense. Then spend a moment and find God in these gifts. The answer is found when we look beyond ourselves, above the horizon and beyond the sun. John 10:10 says it best, Christ brings the difference between just the existing and the chasing of the meaningless, to how we were truly created to live. He removes the futility from the soul and brings about the purpose we are actually dying for. By removing love of creation and focusing it instead on the Creator, we quit settling for the temporary and reach for the eternal.

Go beyond the sun.

Treasure

With all my heart I have sought You;
Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.
Psalm 119:10-11

How this burst within my soul this morning. When have I last sought You with ALL of my heart? Where was I looking? Have I truly treasured Your word recently?

Oh I love the great verses, the ones that inspire! The ones that surely I must have right because I have heard them a thousand times. But what about the rest? How often the goal has been the stroll through the word not the hunt for treasure.

What to do with words that are deep and require time to dig. The ones that involve coming to a stop and getting down on my knees. Too little time, too much effort. Leave it lay! Surely there will be more up ahead.

No, the Psalmist sought You - not the end of a chapter. He clung to the entire word like a gem of great value. Never would he put it down for fear it would be lost. He understood the value.

The same treasure is still here thousands of years later. Placed within reach but it is requires responsibility to seek it, find it, hold on to it - not letting it slip from our grasp. Could there be anything of greater value then to catch just a facet of God’s magnitude and glory found in His word? Sell everything else - obtain it.

Establish Your word to Your servant,
As that which produces reverence for You.
Psalm 119:38

Rhythm

Never have been consider one with rhythm. Even though the drum was my instrument of choice in the junior high band, my teacher never once mentioned that a protegee lay inside me waiting to be discovered. After all, the drum choice was more about not having to learn to read music then an actual passion for creating the beat. Have found little in the relationship between my muscles and nerves that show a gift of rhythm.

However, God calls me to a rhythm that has nothing to do with the coordination of my body and far more about the beat of my heart. Am I in rhythm with him? Is the flow of my life in line with His pace or am I once again dancing to the beat of my own drum?

God has given the natural world around us a rhythm. Spring/summer/fall/winter, morning/day/evening/night, sowing/growing/harvesting/resting, birth/child/youth/adult. These are God’s inescapable patterns.

However, I fail to find a pattern in my life when chasing the bright shiny bobbles that too often catch my eye. Look at all I have to get done today? What do I need to push aside so I can move forward? What other information do I need so I know it all? Who is ahead of me and what do I need to do to catch up? What new luxury do I need to impress those around me? Can’t everyone see how important I am? If they would just do it MY way they could be just like me.

Oh how the world needs my management and input. If I leave it alone for just a few seconds everything falls a part. Blindly I plunge ahead not comprehending, this is what breaks my rhythm. This is the way the world cuts me off from God.

When there are those all too short seasons of unbroken rhythm in my life, there comes a peace, a comfort and a joy that can not be explained except to know I am on beat with Him. Not that everything is perfect. Problems do not just simply vanish but the importance I place on them does. Romans 8:6

Jesus showed us the beat, the perfect life in rhythm with God. It does not come by managing the world. It comes when following the One who created it.