Month: July 2022

Joseph had correctly interpreted the chief cupbearer’s dream for him and was then asking him to put in a good word to Pharaoh…but as soon as he was restored to his position, the chief cupbearer quickly forgot Joseph in prison. But God didn’t. God never abandoned Joseph or turned His back on him as the days, months, and years went by. For it says that it was two years before the cupbearer remembered Joseph in prison. What do you think went through Joseph’s mind for those two years? Did he consider it a time of preparation or purgatory…of going through the process of growing with God or just two years of punishment? In our own lives those times of preparation can seem like being in prison too. It can be a time of confusion and wondering why we’re stuck where we’re at. But God alone gives meaning to all things, and so it’s to Him only we must look for the meaning within our current situation. Delay doesn’t mean defeat, and the preparation time you’re going through right now is only equipping you for the next move of God in your life.

All David had to do is look around himself at all the olive tree groves to make this analogy. Olive trees are evergreens…always alive and growing…their limbs spreading with greenery as they flourish, their wood resistive to decay. In Psalm 1:3 & Proverbs 3:18 the olive tree is a symbol of a blessed life full of wisdom from the Lord…the olive branch often a symbol of abundance and peace. When likening himself to an olive tree, David found life, security and hope in God’s merciful kindness…from the most distant time into the unforeseeable future.

God is the deliverer of all human beings…this general call to repentance and salvation being extended to all found in Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” This is called Common Grace, where God lavishes generous provision on “all people”. But in this verse Paul is also talking about those who have taken the life-changing step to place their confidence in His Son, Jesus Christ…that is when God focuses His special, redemptive grace on “those who believe”.

Paul puts it rather bluntly in I Corinthians 1:25, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” So why do we keep trying to outwit or out maneuver God? We only have to read Proverbs 21:30 to know it’s futile…”There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.” God’s creative, initiative, and overwhelming power far exceeds anything we could ever understand…plain and simple. His uniqueness and supremacy cannot be compared to any other pagan deity found throughout history. God has and will never lie, change His mind, or renege on His promises…something no one else can claim.

Jesus had just performed the great work of feeding the five thousand. With their bellies full, the crowd suddenly realized He and His disciples were nowhere to be found…so they went searching for Him. To them, it had been merely an opportunity for a meal, not recognizing it as a sign identifying Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. When they found Him, Jesus instead taught them of not laboring for material things, but for the lasting bread of eternal life through Him. Has Church become for you just “Dinner and a Show”, where you go to be entertained and have your spiritual belly filled with good stuff? Are you laboring for what doesn’t satisfy? Look to Jesus today and become a partaker of the eternal bread of life.

As God told Moses in Exodus 33:19, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” God’s love and mercy towards all undeserving sinners has nothing to do with us…what we’ve done or will ever do. Rather, it has everything to do with God’s sovereign, gracious, and compassionate nature…the glory of this manifested in His Son, Jesus Christ. God’s desire is that all would come to a saving knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ, and be reconciled and brought back into a right relationship with Him.

Solomon’s incomparable intelligence and abilities had their source in God, Who answered his prayer in I Kings 3:12 when Solomon prayed, “Give me a discerning heart to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” It tells us that like his father David, Solomon loved the Lord…but it also tells us that as Solomon grew old, his one thousand foreign wives and concubines turned his heart after other gods and away from being fully devoted to God. So despite having all this infinite wisdom, Solomon was still just a sinful human being rebelling against the God of his Fathers.

When we are tempted to seek security in financial resources rather in the Lord, we will never be satisfied, enjoy what He has given us, or ever be grateful for anything. In other words, we will never be content, or as I Timothy 6:6-8 tells us, “But Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” Just think, we can be completely content, because our needs are being met by Christ and not short-lived profits that gain us nothing. For the only true and lasting gain for us is Godliness, which is eternal. So our prayer should be something on the line of Proverbs 30:8, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”

To be clothed with Christ is a change of heart, a change of personal condition, and a change of mind. We come to the Cross dressed in the filthy clothing of sin, but we leave dressed in pristine garments of salvation…actually clothed in Christ Himself. Isaiah 61:10 tells us, “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation.” In this process of taking off of the old and putting on of the new we are transformed…these new clothes we’re dressed in becoming garments of praise for our new found deliverance and freedom.

This was the only miracle of the Lord’s that wasn’t fully realized on the first attempt. The reason for this incremental healing was not because of limited power on the part of Jesus, but to illustrate and parallel His disciples journey from complete spiritual blindness, to partial sight, to clear vision. For by now the disciples had been personal witnesses to to many miracles and teachings…their spiritual blindness slowly changing each day. For it was only a few verses later that Jesus asked them directly, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” At that point Peter answered for the group, “You are the Christ.” And at that moment, the disciples were able to see clearly and distinctly that Jesus was in fact the long awaited Messiah.