Divine Flashbangs

I love it when God blows my mind through His Word.  Have you ever seen a war movie when flashbangs are thrown into bunkers to disorient the enemy?  It's like I'm down in the dark bunker, and God just drops a single verse which explodes with light that dazzles and amazes.  Instead of displacing dirt or confusing me, God's Word brings clarity as He continues to erode the natural way I think and gives me God's perspective on practical matters.  God's wisdom is so foreign, but my soul cheers to own and live it out myself.  Keep 'em coming, LORD Jesus!

Last night I read 1 Chronicles 12:16-17 and all I could say was "Wow!"  The verse reads, "Then some of the sons of Benjamin and Judah came to David at the stronghold. ¹⁷ And David went out to meet them, and answered and said to them, "If you have come peaceably to me to help me, my heart will be united with you; but if to betray me to my enemies, since there is no wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look and bring judgment."  Like most people familiar with a language, halfway through a sentence most of the time our brains can complete the rest of the sentence with a fair amount of accuracy.  I am reminded I wrote once of this in a previous post about the danger of finishing God's sentences.  As I read David's words, it was easy for me to know what flesh would want to say.  "If you are my friend, I will be yours.  But if you choose to be my enemy, I..."  You can fill in the blanks.

David, however, didn't finish his sentence the way I expected.  He said, "If you have come peaceably to me to help me, my heart will be united with you; but if to betray me to my enemies, since there is no wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look and bring judgment."  David affirmed he would be united to those who genuinely, peaceably came to him.  Should they betray or seek to hurt him, David looked to God alone to sort that out.  David trusted his God would see any evil and mete out judgment according to His righteousness.  David was a man of faith, and this statement reveals how David committed his hurts and those who hurt Him to God - without feeling the need to retaliate.  This perspective of trust in God is amazingly practical and a key to avoiding bitterness and walking in love towards all.

Today I had the very rare opportunity to play golf.  I am pleased to report my knee held up very well, even having to walk the 18-hole course whilst carrying my clubs.  The only blemish on a fantastic day was that somewhere between holes 9 and 10, I inexplicably lost the cover to my putter.  I was bummed for a couple reasons.  It was the special cover which came with my putter, and it would be hilariously expensive for me to replace it.  As I continued the final holes, I prayed someone would turn in my putter cover to the pro shop where I could reclaim my lost property.  Unfortunately, no one turned it in.  Because there were many golfers following our group, I am certain that bright red cover would contrast nicely with the green grass!  Oh well.

It would be easy for me to be angry someone has claimed my valuable property as their own.  But I was reminded by the scriptures to maintain the God-honouring perspective David demonstrated.  I can commit all my stuff and those who decide to keep it for themselves to God without a shred of anger or frustration.  God knows all about it, and God will sort it out.  I don't need to avenge myself or even beat myself up over my mistake of dropping the cover somewhere.  God has given me an opportunity to trust and honour His Word:  will I follow David's good example with the comfort of the Holy Spirit, or will I become bitter and angry?  Praise the LORD not only for His wisdom, but opportunities to put His wisdom into practice.  Then we can say with David, "As the LORD lives, He has redeemed my soul out of all distress" (1 Kings 1:29).  When we apply God's Word by living it out, it starts becoming a practical and powerful witness of God's undimmed truth.  God gave me that divine flashbang verse yesterday to teach me how to deal with difficulty today.  How glorious is our God!

More Love, More Power

The lyrics of a classic worship song go, "More love, more power, more of You in my life."  Often this is an echo of my own soul to God.  As much as I desire this request to be satisfied, this occurs in a way not addressed in the song.  When a person is born again, the Holy Spirit spiritually regenerates the one dead in sins and begins to reside within.  We do not receive only a fraction of God, but the Holy Spirit in overflowing fullness.  As we mature, we recognise our natural poverty of soul and our God-given supernatural hunger for more of Him grows.

To ask more of God's love, power, or presence insinuates He has not given us all, or He is in some way "holding out" on us.  This is not the case.  The fact is, it is always we who are holding out on Him.  It is useless for us to beg God to dole out more love toward us from His infinite stores.  We must submit more of ourselves to receiving and walking in His love obediently by loving others.  God has not only given us a fraction of His divine power or unction, for the power which raised Jesus from the dead is working in us through the Holy Spirit.  It is we who have refused to trust and commit our lives to Him completely.  God gives the Holy Spirit without measure, and the Spirit pours God's love into us.  It says in Romans 5:5, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."  To ask for God to supply more of Himself is not really the point:  we are the ones who must draw near to Him in faith, for the scripture says if we will draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.

The core issue behind our lack of surrender, disobedience, and waning desire for God is because we busy ourselves seeking satisfaction in anything but God every day.  In Authentic by James MacDonald, a quote from Wilbur Reese's book made an impact upon me:  "I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.  Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.  I want ecstasy, not transformation.  I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.  I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack, please.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God."  (Reese, $3.00 Worth of God, 1971)  We only lack love, power, and presence of God because we are not willing to cultivate it.  We do not want our lives to be disturbed or changed.  We hold onto our sins and are not broken in sorrow and humble repentance.  We want power for living a life we want, and we want it as conveniently and easily as possible.  God is wise to make life hard for it is in the hard, trying times when men and women of faith cry out to God in earnest.

One last thought:  when Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, He told them to bring the clothes on their back, a staff in their hand, and shoes on their feet.  They were not to load themselves with food, money, and supplies.  He was teaching them to live by faith for their day to day necessities.  When it comes to spiritual blessings, we are happy to have feelings of love and power beyond our needs for the day.  We too must learn to trust God for our daily bread and seek Him for a supply of love, power, and grace moment by moment.  Our stores of comfort and joy can be immediately exhausted in this life, and it is only through intentionally seeking God with empty hands and a humble heart in faith that we can be filled again and again.  To have more love, power, and the presence of God, He must have more of us.  He will not demand; He will not force.  Let us draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, seeking His perfect will by surrendering our own will to His.  We will find it is in Him alone we are satisfied and complete.

Avoiding the Invisible Web

I love how God uses simple things to declare spiritual truth. This morning I saw a small beetle hanging motionless in a spider's web. Seconds after noticing the bug, a spindly spider with a large abdomen slowly climbed down to its prey. I sat spellbound, wondering what was going to happen. Would the spider wrap up the bug? Would it slowly eat the beetle or lay eggs in it? Much to my surprise, after moving around the beetle a few times, the bug fell to the floor. The spider skillfully crept back to its hiding place out of sight.

That was anti-climactic, I thought to myself. How silly it seemed to go through all the trouble of spinning a web only to fumble your food to the ground and forget about it! But then it hit me: cutting loose the dead beetle was deliberate. One of the aspects of a effective web is to make it virtually unseen. A bird will seldomly fly into an obvious trap, nor will a beetle crawl into the mouth of a bird. A spider's web is nearly invisible until a moth or bug flies into it. As long as the beetle was hanging in the middle of the small web, it was much more noticeable. Removing the dead bug from the web reset the stealthy trap for future victims.

It occurred to me the scene was a picture of Satan's tactics. He holds forth the alluring aspects of sin but does not include the whole picture - that sin leads to certain death. He craftily cuts loose the corpses of those fallen into iniquity so the simple run headlong to their destruction. How thankful I am that God warns us of the devastating, destructive consequences of sin. Even as sin brings certain death, repentance and trust in Christ leads to eternal life. A fool looks at the fun or enjoyment laying just out of reach on the other side of sin's invisible web, yet the discerning believer sees the corpses littering the ground under the web as dire warnings to heed.  This depicts the truth spoken in Proverbs 22:3:  "A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." The souls that sins will surely die (Eze. 18:20), and those who repent and trust in Christ have a certain hope of life eternal in the presence of the LORD.

Our responsibility is to fear God and keep His commandments.  With the leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, it is not burdensome.  What is a burden is when we try to pursue the tantalizing offering of the world to satisfy our flesh and still walk in the way which fully pleases God.  Micah 6:8 reads, "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"  We cannot earn salvation through our efforts, but receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  In light of the grace we have received, our faith can be demonstrated with works by denying the flesh, being renewed in the Spirit of our minds, and walking in obedience to the Spirit.  In this God is well pleased, and we can receive a full reward!

The Unmodified Seed

“And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”

Genesis 1:12 

In the beginning God created plants which brought forth seed after their own kind.  In simple terms, the seed of each plant is produced in the fruit.  Fruitfulness increases future fruitfulness as more plants grow to maturity.  Seeds produce plants which grow more plants which will bring forth additional fruit of the same kind.  Over the years, plants have been “engineered” or genetically altered to improve aspects of the fruit.  Seedless watermelons and mandarins, sweeter corn with more kernels, and firmer tomatoes are all examples of such efforts.  Whilst many of these engineered crops have various benefits, in many cases they are rendered unable to reproduce themselves.  The alterations have made seedless watermelons but removed the capacity for future fruitfulness from the same vine.

At camp this week, we have talked about the importance of answering questions by sharing the pure Word of God, the Bible.  In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus compared the Word of God to good seed which falls on different soil conditions which represent various conditions of the human heart.  Even as many plants and crops are genetically altered to make them more palatable or to remove those annoying seeds, the same can be done with the good seed of God’s Word.  If we alter the Word or the message, we strip the text of the power to be fruitful in the hearts and minds of others.  Pressure from scientifically minded people have sought to introduce man’s ideas into the biblical account of creation of the earth by God.  In doing so, the text may be more acceptable to our finite, biased minds and make it unfruitful.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ shared without the necessary seeds of man’s sinfulness, need for repentance and atonement, and that Jesus is the only way of salvation, rob souls of kernels necessary to spring into new life.

How important it is therefore to preach the Word without modification!  We live in a day where the tweaking of the Word and denial of literal interpretation is common.  2 Timothy 4:1-4 says, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: ² preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; ⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”  The Bible is not a platform for us to espouse our own beliefs or interpretations, but gives us a charge to hold forth the true doctrine of scripture even if it is mocked or wildly unpopular – get this – even amongst professing Christians.  Modify the scripture even so slightly to make it more palatable to the unbelieving soul, and our vain efforts work to rob it of saving power.