Month: February 2021

In all honesty, King David’s desire to build a permanent structure for the Ark of the Covenant probably came out of guilt. There he was firmly established in his kingdom, living in a lovely palace while the Ark was still residing in a tent. So with enthusiasm and passion he started to make preparations on his grand plan. But then God stepped in, scrapped David’s plan, and instead gave him a very limited role of just gathering building supplies. During my Christian journey this has happened to me many times. I get these wonderful ideas, (or at least they sound wonderful to me), of things I can do for the Lord, only to have Him shut them down soundly. It’s at that moment I have two choices to make…I can sulk or I can accept. I can pout or I can move on acknowledging God knows best.

Throughout his letter to the Romans, Paul argues against the idea of getting “Fire Insurance”. What do I mean? It’s accepting Jesus into your life but refusing to actually conform to the moral Will of God. It’s trying to pull one over on the Lord…of having your cake and eating it too. It’s banking on God’s loving kindness and gracious disposition towards us that He’ll continue to forgive, and forgive, and forgive…regardless of what wickedness we do. But begging forgiveness after the fact, (particularly only when/if we get caught) rather than changing our ways in the first place is what ” becoming a new creation” is all about . (II Corinthians 5:17)

Bad things do happen to good people everyday. That doesn’t mean though God’s sovereignty and innate goodness towards His children is somehow lessened. We must remember that we live in a very broken world, full of very broken people, who behave in very broken ways. But to the defense of Job’s wife here, she too had experienced with Job the death of all her children and loss of everything they owned…but now seeing her husband, in serious physical condition, her faith faltered…probably fearing she would be left a penniless, childless widow. She also may have always relied on her husband’s faith rather than her own in times of trouble, and now seeing him in such mental and physical pain it shook her to the core. So when Job called her foolish, he was talking about her failure to keep the faith, and to keep her perspective of God.

Zacchaeus was a loathed outcast of the Jewish community in his home town of Jericho after he had sold out to became a Tax Collector for the hated Romans. He had heard that this Jesus person was passing through and wanted to catch a glimpse of Him…so he climbed up into a Sycamore-fig tree for a hidden vantage point. But Jesus had other ideas. As He approached the tree Jesus stopped, looked up into the branches and called Zacchaeus by name to come down…and then Jesus shocked the gathered crowd by inviting Himself to his house. Jesus was looking past the sin to see the soul…He was searching the heart and mind of Zacchaeus rather than looking at just the superficial. That’s because Jesus knew the inner man of Zacchaeus and loved him just as he was. And this unconditional love dramatically changed Zacchaeus.

It would of been so much easier if with that first little bundle of joy an Owner’s Manuel came along to give instructions on being perfect parents…but it didn’t. So we do the very best we can…sometimes with good results, sometimes not so much. Many times we fall back on how we were brought up. A few days ago I was speaking to my youngest son about me being raised in a very stoic and undemonstrative family that were taught not to show emotion, to suck it up and move on. There was a moment of silence and then he said, “That’s where I got that!” Parenting is not an exact science and we all fail our kids many times…with some unable to parent at all due to their upbringing. But no matter how well or how badly you felt your parents raised you…remember, the Lord is always there for you…and He will never leave nor forsake you.

Paul’s drastic conversion took him from persecutor to Pastor. His divine appointment with the Lord changed him from a zealous destroyer of the early Church to passionately declaring the Gospel Message. You may think someone you’ve been praying for will never come to Christ…that they’re too evil and wicked to ever change…but that’s not God’s desire. For even Paul was changed from someone who formerly harassed Christians to heralding the Good News to the Gentiles. Just remember this, nothing is too difficult for the Lord.

The snare is a rather rudimentary and primitive hunting technique. It involves setting a camouflaged trap of a noose to catch unsuspecting birds or mammals. They are lured to the area and then seized by the noose which kills them. For us humans, sin is our snare. Sin is ever there enticing us, disguised as something harmless…and yet if we yield to it… we’re caught in the same snare. But if are eyes are continually on the Lord and not the allurements of the world we’ll be less likely to succumb to the snare of sin. So as Hebrews 12:2 exhorts, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus…”