Children by Choice

Today is a happy day.  We got to go to an "adoption day" party.  Two beautiful little girls were (finally) formally, legally adopted today into a wonderful, loving family.  We got to share in the joy of the family, and it got me thinking about a different kind of family--God's Family, His Church.

I know I keep jumping around a lot, but I went to Romans 8 today for my devotional.  I've been talking a lot about redemption lately, and this scripture continues that thread, talking about how we are separated from our sinful selves by God, and how we have to WORK at living that out.

We have to deny our sinful natures, and not let our lives be dictated by what we know we shouldn't do, even when we feel like we want to do it.  And we do it because of the gift God has given us, life through His Son.

Paul, the author of Romans, tells us that when we accept God's Spirit, He brings us into His family.  Romans 8:15b says, "Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children.  Now we call Him, Abba Father."  We get to call Him Daddy.

This passage really blessed me today because it dealt with two separate issues I was thinking about.  This family I was talking about earlier, the one that adopted the two little girls?  They have already adopted another boy and have an older foster daughter.  These children have been given the chance to have a Dad, just as we have.  But, like any family, there are expectations and rules, love and compassion.

Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be called your son.  Thank you that you chose to adopt me, and that you give me purpose, family, and a future.

Crazy Love

Staying in the era of the Judges, I needed to read something happy.  For any of you who don't know, I struggled with gall bladder issues for awhile before I had it removed, and I have been continuing to struggle with some digestive issues enough that my surgeon wants me to have some further testing done.

Enough, Already!

 

So today, I've been nervous, because tomorrow I'm having a "minor" procedure ... and I wanted to read a story about something good coming from a tough situation, so read the book of Ruth.

The story of Ruth is one of my favorite love stories of all time, but I'd forgotten an element that reminded me of another of my favorite love stories ... Disney's Aladdin.

Ruth, like my friend Aladdin, is a "diamond in the rough."  She marries into an Jewish family, apparently accepting their traditions and religion, and sticks with her mother-in-law after all the family providers have died.  In that culture, women only had a few options:  wife/mother, prostitute, or beggar was the typical list.  Ruth, though LOVED her mother-in-law Naomi so much that she chose to stay with her, rather than go back home to possibly try again for a young, fertile, respectable husband from her own people.

Ruth's love is poured out to Naomi in her famous proclamation:  “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”  (1:16-17)

Not only does Ruth give everything she has to stay with Naomi, she goes with her, knowing she is headed into poverty.  But she doesn't stop.  She gets to Judah, scrounges for food, and meets a man who is willing--actually happy--to redeem her, Naomi, and their ancestral land.  (There's that recurring theme of redemption again!)

The short of the story is Ruth bears a son who is the grandfather of the most famous (and probably best) king the people of Israel ever had ... David.  This foreigner who had nothing shows by her character her value; she is a gem of a woman.  And God blessed her.  

I read this story looking for my happy ending, and I found it.  But reading it reminded me of so much more.  God looks for the insignificant and the broken to use and restore, so He can do great things--things that can impact people and history far beyond the lifetime of the vessel he uses.

        

Lord, thank You for giving me a measure of peace through Ruth's story, that everything CAN turn out for good.  Thank you even more for choosing to work through Your creation--me--even though I really don't have much to offer on my own.  Let everything I accomplish of good be credited to Your work in my life, even by those who might not believe in You.  Let them "see [my] good works, and glorify [my] Father in Heaven."

Judge Me

I'm behind in my blogging ... I've been reading and praying, but I haven't been recording, so for those of you who have been following and might have been concerned ... well, I'm back!

Anyway, I skipped around the Minor Prophets a bit, and kept getting the same message over and over again.  God wants to redeem His people, and Israel/Judah/God's enemies will be defeated and punished for going past what He wanted them to do to bring His people back to Him.  There are a lot of smaller nuggets of truth buried in these books, a lot of wonderful promises, a lot of horrific judgments.  But I felt like I needed a different perspective, so I went back a little bit in the Old Testament (and in history) to the Book of Judges.  And I found the bottom line--I found why the Israelites, and I, continued to fail over and over and over again.

The first chapter/section of Judges starts out pretty well.  The Tribe of Judah drives out (almost) all the enemies in the territory that is set aside for them.  Then Judges starts describing how the other tribes fared.  And there is a common thread, "[they] didn't drive [the enemies] out of the land," but tried to subjugate them.  God's people didn't strive for ultimate victory--they settled for mediocre success.

In my own life, why do I continue to struggle with the same issues time and time again?  I used to think that it was just because those issues erupted from some personality flaws that were part of my human make-up.  This passage makes me question that assumption.

I think it may have more to do with the fact that I don't keep pushing to destroy those things that cause me to fail.  My "secret sins."  My "weaknesses."  I use my frailty as an excuse to fail, instead of allowing God to work through me to purge me of my shortcomings.  I let Him in far enough to get me through, but not far enough to change me forever.

I take the quick win, and miss out on the ultimate victory.  

I'm not going to list all my issues here ... for one, this is not the right forum for that kind of transparency; for another, my list is way too long for any of you to stay interested ...

But if you understand what I'm saying, and if you can agree with my premise, I challenge you to go one step further on my journey with me--delve deep, search yourself (like I will), and let God start the cleansing of your inner "land."  The territory ultimately belongs to Him, He just wants us to live in it and prosper.

      God, help me to give over my failures to You totally and completely, so You can keep me from falling again and again.  Remind me daily that by not claiming total victory, I allow my enemies (sometimes including myself) to keep a foothold that can develop into a stronghold.  I need You to bring complete change to replace my temporary successes.  Thank You for not giving up on me.

The Biggest Day in History

So it's Easter.  
             The tomb is empty.  
                         Hope has sprung.

My family and I talked about the Easter story today.  (In case you think I'm avoiding church, I'm not ... we went last night.)  My wife even posted a video on YouTube of our kids talking about their thoughts on Easter.

I read the account from the book of John, starting with the end of chapter 19 and read the first half of chapter 20.  The religious leaders prepared a story JUST IN CASE Jesus turned out to be Who He said He was.  They convinced the governor, Pilate, to have the tomb sealed and guarded so Jesus' disciples wouldn't steal His body.

Of course, their worst fears came true.  An angel rolled away the stone, Jesus appeared to several people, the body was gone, but the grave clothes were still there, and the soldiers had gone catatonic when it happened.

So, when Jesus arose on the third day, they (the religious leaders) bribed the soldiers who had been on duty to say that while they were sleeping on the job, somebody came and rolled away the stone and managed to remove His body without getting caught.  Major flaws in their story here ...

First, soldiers on guard duty who fell asleep would be charged with the equivalent of dereliction of duty--a capital offense.  Second, the stone was HUGE, and would have probably made a lot of noise and woken them up.  Third, the disciples were currently scared out of their wits, hiding in a locked room, avoiding the authorities--not planning some master scheme, but literally afraid for their lives.

Now it doesn't take a huge stretch of imagination to see why so many people over the course of time have found Jesus' resurrection somewhere on the spectrum of Total Bunk on one end and Incontrovertible Truth on the other.  It's pretty momentous, unique, and difficult to prove or disprove.

Total Bunk <--------------------------------->Incontrovertible Truth

I obviously am on the right (see, it's both correct and directional!) side of this spectrum.

I can't force anyone to believe what I believe, but the arguments that Jesus isn't Who He said He Is, or that He didn't do what He said He'd do, or that there is no God seem to take the same amount of faith to believe as my point of entrance into the argument ... Jesus is the Risen Son of God, Truth Incarnate, the Redeemer of Creation.  And if my argument is correct, Easter is the Proof.

Whether you believe in it or not, if you're totally honest and can be objective, Easter changed the course of human history forever.  Pretty big day, huh?

Lord, help me to remember and celebrate Your victory and redemption that happened on a Sunday morning about 2000 years ago every day for the rest of my life.  That day changed everything for everyone.  Help me continue to make the choice that makes it a positive change for me.  

The Day Before the Answer

              It's Saturday, the day between Good Friday, marking the crucifixion, and Easter, marking the resurrection.

I've always been intrigued by this short window of time, before the disciples believed.  We don't know exactly what they were doing, but I think we can surmise from John's account of the day of the Resurrection that this day was probably much like the day Jesus arose from the grave and conquered death.

John tells us that the disciples were hiding, afraid of the mobs, Romans, and religious leaders that had just killed their Master.


They hadn't yet been given hope.  




They were mired in despair and fear.  









And though I am sure I will talk about hope and more tomorrow, today I feel it is important to remember what Jesus saved us from.

Fear.

Pain.

Worry.

Sickness.

Death.

Damnation.

Hopelessness.

Purposelessness.

I know that I have encountered these horrors in my life.  I haven't died, or been lost forever in Hell, but I've lost loved ones, and I've known people who have passed away who I'm not sure made the decision to follow Jesus.  All the others are common to what people call the human condition.  It's not the Creator's desire for this to be the case, but like I've been blogging about, we--individuals, mankind as a whole, even creation--need redemption.

And, lest we take this gift for granted, sometimes we need to remember what life without a Messiah was like.  

Lord, help me to remember not only what You paid, but WHY You paid it.  You didn't just offer "fire insurance," you offered life in this time and place.  Thank You SO much for what You have done.  

Have a Good Friday

I jumped around a bit today ... and I apologize for the lack of graphics today, but I have to get to work soon.

It's Good Friday, and I wanted to read a little about Jesus' sacrifice, our atonement, and His position.  So, naturally, I found myself reading Hebrews.

I read through the first three chapters, thinking "this is important, this is good."  But--due to my upbringing--I'd seen it all, heard it all, even memorized most of it ...

And then, a verse I've read who knows how many times hit me.  At the risk of taking it out of context, Hebrews 4:2 says, "For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith."  (emphasis mine--I suddenly feel like a real author, typing that phrase!)

The passage around this verse is about the differences between Moses and Jesus, the people of ancient Israel during the Exodus and the early Church.  Moses delivered the message, but the people missed it because they didn't believe.  They were afraid to enter the Promised Land.  They weren't sure they would survive, they weren't sure it was worth it.  They didn't really BELIEVE that God had their best interest at heart.

The early Church, on the other hand, BELIEVED that this message was for them.  They embraced the atonement, the sacrifice, the propitiation of their sins.  They didn't UNDERSTAND it all (and neither do I), but that didn't stop their BELIEF.

It really does come down to FAITH.  It's a choice.  I know this may sound silly, but I believe in gravity.  I can't see it, I can't touch it, but I trust that it will keep me from randomly drifting off the ground.  No one has ever seen gravity.  Everyone has seen its effect.  Not everyone has recognized it for what it is, but it has always been here.  See a parallel?

I BELIEVE in God.  I haven't seen Him, but I've seen what He has done.  Not everyone recognizes His actions for what they are like I do, but I don't believe that changes the substance of what He has done.

For having blind faith, I sure can see a lot ...

          Lord, help me to believe better.  I don't want Your message for my life to be missed because I don't have the faith to see it or hear it for what it is.

On Redemption and Apocalypticism

On to the the book of Joel today ... and this book is in a much different vein of delivery from Hosea.

One major premise of this book is consistent with Hosea:  God allows, even sends, suffering on His people in order to draw them back to Him.  We read about war, famine, locusts plagues, and despair.

Even the land groans for relief.  And in the midst of it, is a charge--a challenge--for corporate repentance and worship.  God WANTS to bring abundance to His people.

There's also an apocalyptic bent to the book.  I'm no expert on interpreting apocalyptic segments of scripture and transposing it into historical/future significance.  But it does seem clear that Joel, like many of the Old Testament prophets (and religious leaders throughout history) expects final justice against Israel's antagonists.
The litany of offenses against Israel's God by her nation-enemies will be repaid.  He has used them to bring judgment to His people, but they went overboard.  And He plans to bring them down.  He will lead them into a confrontation where it seems none of them will will be the victor, and Judah and Jerusalem will be exonerated and freed from their influence.

It is not my intent to say, "look around at the world right now, and see God destroying these countries."  I don't know if this judgment on these nations has already come and gone, or if it is yet to be seen.  I think, for me, today, the more important point is this:

God plans to redeem His people.  

And I, because of the sacrifice of Jesus, have been included in that redemption.  His end-game scenario displays plenty and ease of life.  Struggles to make ends meet cease.  There is peace, there is justice, and He enfolds His people into His love and security.  Sounds heavenly.

I guess what I get out of my reading today is not really that different from what I read yesterday.  God longs to redeem and protect and provide for His people, and He will do what He must to bring them to the point where they realize their need for Him.  I'm not saying all discomfort is from God, by any means.  People have free will, and we do enough harm to ourselves and each other on our own.  But I do believe God is willing to use everything He can to bring us to the point where we reach out to Him.

Lord, let me see Your hand in everything I experience, and let me seek every opportunity to reach out to You.  Thank You for Your plan of redemption--not for the sorrow caused to others, but for the joy You bring to all who accept Your plan.  Help me to be a conduit of Your blessing to other people in every circumstance.