Proskuneo

Hebrews 9:15-22

2008-07-10T06:39:00.001-07:00

What is guilt? What is the price of sin?

“The wages of sin is death,” says Paul. (Romans 6:23) In the Bible, the eventual punishment for every form of sin is death. It's the only punishment—there is no other.

Seems harsh, doesn't it? Is it hard to understand? I mean, death for a murderer, maybe we can understand, but death for a liar?

I had a friend in high school that applied for Harvard. He was valedictorian, had a 6.0 GPA, scored perfect on every college placement exam he could get his hands on—you know the type. He was a genius!, and since he wanted to study law, Harvard seemed pretty natural.

He was turned down cold—couldn't even get his foot in the door.

My friends were all amazed, but I said, 'Hey! It's Harvard. There are how many thousands of high school students each year for them to choose from?' They had high standards. It's why he wanted to go in the first place. If they ever lowered their standards, their academic level would suffer, and their reputation in the academic world would be ruined.

On the other hand, Austin Community College even accepted me into their program. Needless to say, their academic standards are fairly forgiving.

At any rate, we dispense law in our country as seems fit to us, based on the standards we set for our society: You can't kill people. You can't attack people. You can't steal from people. In general, these principles seem fair to us, and we try to establish punishments that fit the severity of the crime committed.

Imagine that our society is Austin Community College. We accept just about anybody in our society, even murderers and thieves, because our standards of morality are pretty forgiving.

Now imagine that God is the ethical equivalent of Harvard University. He can't accept just anybody even if He wants to, because His standards are set extremely high. If He did start accepting anybody that came to Him, He would have to lower His standards, and that would ruin His ethical standing in the world.

Is that even possible? Can you even imagine a world where the Creator of the world did not stand for good and for order? The Law of Entropy says that everything in our universe begins in order and reverts to chaos. Who is that beginning or order but the Creator of the universe? What if that Creator suddenly stopped standing for order?

Gadzooks! Meganoito! What in the world!? Would everything in creation suddenly fly apart if the Source of our order ever failed us?

It can't happen—it mustn't happen! We can't let it happen! Would it even be worth it, the destruction of the universe, for God to drop His standards for even a single wrongdoing?

No way! What, are you crazy?!

But we know that God wants, longs, yearns that everyone come to Him and be with Him—we see that in Ezekiel 18, in Hosea 11, in 2 Peter 3, in John 3:16, in so many other places. At the end of Ezekiel 18, He pleads: “Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (18:31-32)

And that's the secret to God's plan for fellowship with man, right there: a new heart and a new spirit. It's the new covenant He promised in Jeremiah 31:31, the new covenant that the author of Hebrews mentions in verse 15. The only requirement for this covenant is that someone should die in place of the offender. Under the old covenant that God made with the children of Israel, that place was taken by goats and calves—but how could the blood of an unknowing, helpless animal ever truly substitute for the blood of a knowing, fully responsible human being?

There's just no way. Anybody can see that.

For this reason, Christ came to seal the new covenant with His own blood—given knowingly and willingly, without sin or offense of His own to redeem. A perfect life lived for us, to show us the heart of God; a perfect life given for us, to cleanse our hearts for God; a perfect life resurrected for us, to bring us all into the heart of God through that resurrection.

Jesus couldn't have done it alone. N'est-ce pas?

Jesus could not have done it alone. If you learn anything from His life, see that He lived to give the Father the glory. God was with Christ, and God raised Him up from the dead so that He could redeem us forever with His blood.

“Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (v. 22b) This is a given principle of the Bible, a foundational law of creation. It was true for Adam and Eve, true in the time of Abraham, true in Moses' day, true when Jesus came, and it still holds true for us today. We, as they, achieve our ultimate forgiveness through the blood of Christ. All He asks is that we put our faith in Him enough to take up our own burden for Him.

Am I willing to bear the burden of Christ on my heart today, or will I choose my own purposes? He lived and died for me, so that I may gain the ultimate reward. Am I going to live and die with Him, so that I may gain that reward; or would I rather work for my own wages?

I pray Jesus might help me to choose.

Hebrews 9:11-14

2008-07-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

I go out and I buy a notebook at the store. I pay a dollar for it, take it home, and it's mine. I can make paper airplanes out of it, write notes for school in it, use it for a journal, whatever I want, and nobody's going to call me out for misusing the notebook--it's mine, I bought it, I get to do whatever I want with it.

Makes sense, right?

At the end of this verse, we see a clause that recurs throughout the New Testament: "[Jesus redeemed us with His blood] so that we may serve the living God." (v. 14b) We see it in the scriptures all the time. In Ephesians, Paul says "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus saved us, yes, and He saved us with a purpose.

Does that make Jesus' sacrifice into something self-serving or selfish? Does it mean God only uses us for His own gain?

Good reader, think not such things. If I sit down and make a pot out of clay, I can choose to make it a serving dish or a bedpan, and nobody will think less of me for either. If God crafted us, and if He did make us only to suit His own purposes, there would be no fault in it--isn't that what a creator does? Even if God did create some people only to be punished, that would be His prerogative, wouldn't it? (Romans 9)

But that just isn't the way God thinks--look at the Bible! In Ezekiel 18, God tells his prophet, "'Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?' declares the Lord. 'Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?'" (Ezekiel 18:23) In Hosea, He says, "My people are determined to turn from Me... I will not carry out My fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim, For I am God, and not man--the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath." (Hosea 11:7a, 9) In the New Testament, Peter says "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) Is this a description of a creator that creates some vessels for beauty and some for destruction? Rather, aren't these the words of a father that cares for His children, that longs for them to come home?

If we accept that God does care for us in all things and that He saves us in order that we might serve Him, then we must conclude that serving God is good. God saves us for our own good, and that good is to serve Him.

Have you ever longed for a greater truth in your life, for a greater purpose? Have you envied those that die for a cause they believe in, whose convictions and sense of purpose were so strong that they were willing to give their lives for their beliefs?

As Christians, we have such a purpose, given by God to us when He saved us from our sins. Before, we were unloved; before, we were not a people--but God has chosen to love us, and has made us His own people. Before, we were slaves of sin--but God offers us the chance to become servants of righteousness. (Author's note: I don't say 'slave' because we don't think of slaves as having a choice--this wasn't always the case. In Paul's day, I could sell myself into slavery to pay a debt. Once my debt was paid, I could buy myself back out of slavery. In Israel, a master was required to set all his slaves free every fifty years. The slave could choose to remain a slave, or he could take his freedom and go. This is the slavery God offers to us: we choose to serve Him, and we can choose to stop serving Him. This at-will slavery is completely foreign to a society that tends to consider any form of slavery as evil, and so I say: slaves (against our will) to sin, servants (by our choice) to righteousness in God.)

This is our purpose, this is our cause; yet, God doesn't force His will or His salvation on us. We can choose not to serve Him; but, by our natures, we must serve some greater master. If we choose not to serve God, then we must choose to serve mammon, the god of this age, the devil. On the other hand, we can choose to let God buy off our debt with the blood of Christ, and we can accept His purpose for our lives.

What choice will I make today? Will I accept God's purpose, or will I find my own?

The choice is mine.

Hebrews 9:1-9

2008-07-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Once again, the writer of Hebrews begins a comparative analysis of the Law: first, the old Law was inadequate, insufficient; then, the Contract of Christ is greater and, in fact, perfect.

The tabernacle, God's dwelling place among the Israelites throughout their time in the wilderness and through their formative kingdom years. It's a memory of pillars of fire and of parting waters, of conquests and triumphs. The tabernacle was the visible reminder of Israel's holy fellowship with God Almighty, given to them through Moses when they agreed that they should be God's people, and that He should be their God.

Think of the tabernacle with visions of glory, of consecration, and of devotion, and you may begin to understand how important this first temple was to Israel. Its building was commissioned by God, its plans laid out by Him, its components given in sacrifice to Him, the trophies of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, which God accomplished for them. This tabernacle, this was the house of God!

And yet, these blueprints, these holy symbols, were only a shadow of the types found in Heaven. The priests that presided among them could only go in to the ark of the Law once a year, and then only with the blood of sacrifice, because they were not worthy to enter into its presence. As priests, they were insufficient to mediate between God and man; and as objects of communion, the archetypes in the tabernacle were insufficient to bring man into closer union with God.

These things, the author says, are an illustration: a visual proof for us, that the Law was incomplete. He calls them "external regulations", and it recalls a verse from Jeremiah that he'll bring in later: "'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord. 'I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts.'" (Jeremiah 31: 33a) An internal covenant, better than the external regulations--that was the promise God made to the Israelites, and, the author of Hebrews says, the fulfillment of that promise was witnessed in his generation.

External regulations are reminders, like the pillars of stone set up across the Jordan. (Joshua 4) When people ask, 'What do these regulations you keep mean?' we tell them that the debt of sin was cut off by the blood of Christ. When He died for us, our debt of sin was cut off. These regulations we keep as a memorial for the people of God forever.

And yet, regulations themselves are powerless to save--both those set forth on Sinai and the external trappings we follow today. The Lord's Supper is powerless to save. Worship cannot save us. Praise will not avail. Fellowship with the body of Christ is not enough to win us the victory over sin. Are these things vitally important? Yes!, but only in the role they serve, and it's the same role the tabernacle played: illustration. Now, as then, the ceremonies we keep, external regulations that display heavenly truths, serve as our reminders, ordained and blessed by God, just as those holy stones from the river Jordan served to remind the children of Israel of the power of God in their midst.

It is God Who saves through the Name given to Jesus, which is above every other name, in honor of His sacrifice, the blood and the body pierced for our transgressions. Next to this Truth, all else is but a shadowy reminder.

Like Moses, we live not in the glory of God, but protected from His glory. In this shadowland of grace, we see many things that have the power to remind us of God.

The only question for me is this: Will I allow them to remind me? When other people ask me what these dim forms represent, will I allow them to teach others? This is their sole purpose, their one reason for existence. Will I allow the tabernacles in my life to fulfill the glorious role intended for them by God above, or will I ignore them?

That is for me to decide every day.

Hebrews 8:6-13

2007-08-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Remember the 8-track tape?
These monsters were going the way of the CD while I was young. They've long since been replaced by cassette tapes, which were ousted by CDs, which now seem to be giving way to iMusic.
Ah, progress. Smells like a brand new car.

But seriously, music fans. Why did the 8-track have to go?
If you've ever listened to an old 8-track, you know the answer to this question. If you've ever seen an old 8-track, you probably have a pretty good idea. They were huge, sounded so-so, and did not age well. Listening to an old 8-track tape is a lot like listening to an electric chainsaw band.
As opposed to digital music, which is uber-transferrable (much to the music companies' chagrin), high-fidelity (unless you're seriously into vinyl), and practically free to produce. We get a song over the internet from the comfort of our couch without having to browse those silly music stands at the store. We store the song on our hard drives, dump it onto a flash drive, or put it on our MP3 players. The song doesn't get old or grainy, it doesn't skip beats, and the MP3 player never eats our tapes...
In short, digital music is way, like, totally better. Who'd want to go back to 8-tracks? I mean, honestly!

That's the new covenant. The first covenant was broke. It didn't work. It showed people that they were bad, sure, but it didn't make them perfect. People tried to follow the old law, but they couldn't.
So enter Jesus, the Son of God, to initiate a new covenant, a new promise. And the new promise (which had been promised to the prophets, by the way) was better than the old one.

This is one of my favorite verses. "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the Lord!', for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them," says the Lord. Isn't that awesome?

Hebrews 8:1-5

2007-08-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

What is a shadow?
If you were to look only at my shadow, you'd have no idea what I looked like. My shadow is not a representation of me, it's only an effect made because light can't pass through me. It doesn't show the color of my hair. It doesn't show whether I'm skinny or overweight. It doesn't even truly show how tall I am.
The author doesn't say the law is a reflection of the things in heaven--a reflection is inaccurate and sometimes imprecise, but it at least gives you a good idea of what the original thing is. But a shadow? You can tell the relative outline of an object from its shadow, and that's all.

Think about a new moon. When the moon is full, you can see the entire moon. As it wanes, we see the shadow of the earth on the moon. The shadow has the curve of the earth, so we know the earth is curved. The shadow covers the entire moon, so we know that the earth is close to the moon. But from the shadow of the earth, that's about all we can tell.
That's the way the old law was. We can tell a few things about heaven from the law, but not much. Looking at the law and imagining heaven is like looking at the crescent moon and imagining the earth: it's not very effective.

Now contrasted to this simple light-trick that is the law is the "radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being", which the author calls Jesus in 1:3. It's this perfect image that establishes the new law, as opposed to the weak shadow of the old. The difference between the new law and the old law is the difference between a 10 megapixel photograph of God's will and a cave painting.

Now that's what we're called to serve: the real thing. That's what the author of Hebrews is saying: we're not called to take part in a shadow play any more--we're called to be a part of the kingdom of God, plain and simple, and we've got the one-and-only Son of God leading us in this new kingdom.
Isn't it amazing? Praise God!

Hebrews 7:23-28

2007-08-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Because we believe in Jesus, we can see that He is better than the priests of the old law: Jesus is eternal, and Jesus is perfect. He will always be there to go to God for us, and He his intercessions will never be tainted by His own sins, because He is without sin.
What arguments do you make about priests? What kinds of things do we say about preachers and pastors today? We see them shouting at a waiter in a restaurant and we say to each other, "Uh-huh. Look at Pastor So-and-so. He's hellfire and brimstone, all right..." Or we see them going into an R-rated movie theatre and we say, "Look at Preacher So-and-so! He likes the same kinds of movies we like! What makes him so tight with God?"
I'm not saying all waiters are saintly or all R-rated movies are bad, but you know the kind of situation I'm referring to because you've seen them yourself. We see our preachers and our spiritual leaders doing bad things and we say to ourselves, "What makes him so much more spiritual than me?"
That's not Jesus. In order to find something bad to say about Jesus, the priests had to make something up -- and they couldn't even do that right! They had a crowd full of witnesses and no one could agree on a single bad thing to say about the Son of Man. Now that's impressive!

I get disillusioned sometimes. Does it ever happen to you? I feel like the world should be one way, like people should be one way, and when it really isn't and they really aren't, sometimes I get disappointed. And what's the worst is when it's someone you look up to and truly respect.

Jesus is not going to let you or me down, brothers and sisters. Jesus is going to be there for us, and He's never going to not be there for us. He's never going to fall down. No one is ever going to take Him down a notch. He will never fail nor disappoint.
That's what it means when it says Jesus is eternal, and Jesus is perfect.

He's our king. And He's the One that pleads our case with God when we sin against Him.
We can take comfort in that.

Hebrews 7:11-22

2007-08-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

A logical argument, this--I like it: If the old system (like MS-DOS?) was so good, why did it change?
And did it change, you ask? Of course, yes; observe: the old priesthood came from ancestry of the line of Levi. But this new priest is not a Levite; he's from Judah. And if He is from Judah, then He can't be a priest under the old system. (Ironic, isn't it, that Jesus the Christ was not qualified for priesthood under the law of God passed down through Moses? But that's what the author of Hebrews is saying!) But He is a priest, as it's prophesied: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."
Now you and me are thinking, huh what? How do we know this is talking about Jesus anyway? It's from Psalms!
Aha, but take a look at the distinctive quote in its own context, in Psalm 110. David says in verses 1-3,
"The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth."
He's clearly talking about the king, isn't he? And yet, verse 4 throws in a surprise: "The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.' "
So what's this? Saul was a Benjamite and David from the tribe of Judah. Neither Benjamite nor Judean was authorized to become priests--and so, when God declares here He'll suddenly decide to make the king a priest, as well...
Well, what else can it mean? The priesthood is going to change!
I just wonder if that's part of the reason the high priests really wanted Jesus dead. The gospel says that the high priest had a vision that one man should die for the sake of many, but I just wonder if this passage wasn't in the back of his mind: God's going to make the king priest, instead of the Levites. Where would that put the priests of the day, anyway? Some of them loved the power they had over the people, and I'm sure they didn't want to give that up. So when Jesus came out and started preaching with authority, saying to people "You've heard this about the Law of God [from the priests and the teachers of the law!], but I'm telling you it means something different!" Other rabbis argued and bickered and quoted other rabbis and scriptures, but Jesus was giving what seemed to be His own interpretation of the Law. What's worse, it was the right interpretation--Jesus spelled it out so clearly that even a fisherman could understand it!
Is it little wonder, then, that men who loved power moved to protect their power?
Anyway. God declared about this king, "I am declaring you priest!"
This was new. And yet, if Jesus was the King--and everyone thought He was; they'd been willing to crown Him during His ministry. Look at what they called Him in the triumphal entry: "Son of David". Son of the Great King! In our language, that means prince. For them, it meant king.
And it was this king of whom David spoke--who else could it be? No other king had been a priest. When Saul tried, God forsook him; and yet, it's God that appoints Jesus as king and priest.

And, this having been said, we come back to the point of the matter: If there's a new priesthood, there must be a new law. If only Levites could be priest under the old law, and if Jesus is not of Levi, and if Jesus is a priest, then the old law must have been replaced.
And why? Because it was weak and useless, and because there's now something better.

Jesus is something better. He was coronated by God, lauded by angels, worshipped by men, murdered by men, raised by God, and now lives to intercede with God on our behalf, waiting at His Father's right hand for God to crush all enemies under His feet, just as He promised.

And what of us that worship Him and that strive to follow Him? Are we waiting for God, too? Have we forgotten what we're waiting for?
It's so easy to forget. Someone gets ahead of me in traffic, and I'm not waiting patiently on God--I'm busy cursing my brother. I see a beggar on the street, and I'm not waiting on God--I'm too busy crossing over on the other side of the road. Someone says something that hurts me, and I'm not waiting on God--I'm too busy lashing out and trying to hurt him back.
But we mustn't. Jesus died for us. Don't we want to live for Him? Don't we want to serve Him? And if I do want to serve, how then shall I serve? How, in my life, will I be faithful?
How will you?

Hebrews 7:1-10

2007-08-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Remember when Abraham met the mysterious priest Melchizedek? It's only the one time in Genesis 14, and then he's alluded to in Psalm 110. Remember the circumstances?
This bible story plays out like a Steven Seagal action flick. The king of Sodom and four other kings had been ruled by Kederlaomer of Elam for twelve years, and then they rebelled. So now king K is coming back to knock them down a peg and take away their cities. King K, along with three allies, goes up against the five kings in a valley filled with tar pits. Kederlaomer, of course, wins the fight, and men of Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboyim and Bela run away, falling into the inky tar and never being seen nor heard from again.
Sounds just like Hollywood, yes?
So enter Abram, the humble Hebrew. He finds out that his nephew Lot, who chose to live on the fertile plains of Sodom, has been kidnapped by these conquerors. Abram saddles up his camel and brings along 318 of his best men to go up against the bad guys and save his nephew.
Now don't think that Kederlaomer was any kind of pushover; after all, he had just come back from soundly whipping the rebels and carrying off their women and possessions. (Well, think about it. If you beat a guy and carry off his stuff, he'll have sons and they'll come and beat up you and your sons when you get old. If you beat a guy and take away his stuff and his women, he won't be able to have sons to come after you later. And you get more women for the men in your town or tribe to have sons with. It seemed like a win-win situation at the time.) Kederlaomer is a tough cookie, and Abram is going up against this cat with his own men and no allies. And is Abram scared of ticking off this Canaanite king? No way. He's in hot pursuit.
Can't you just see Seagal standing there with his shepherd's staff? "Now, you don't wanna make me mad."
End of story? Abram plans an ambush and has the bad guys running away with their tails between their legs in time for Oprah.

Okay, now. So to-be-Father Abraham is coming off a big win, and then he comes to Melchizedek, the "priest of God Most High". And what does Abram do? Abram gives the first part of the spoils to God, no questions asked.
This is a very cool thing.

Think about it. Have you ever worked really hard for something, maybe for a long time, put everything you had into this and maybe even took on some big personal risk to get it? That's Abram all the way. Abram just put up his own men, the men in his house, the men he ate dinner with; he put their lives and his on the line to win this battle. He fought smart--this was no Gideon, where the bad guys were stabbing each other in fear. Abram used solid tactics and hard training and a lot of gumption to win this fight.
We would say that Abram deserved that win.
And yet, his response is to give the first part to God, though His priest Melchizedek.
What he does after is even better, but I'll leave that for you to read. Let's leave it with this:

Abram paid honor to God through Melchizedek the priest. Whoever Melchizedek was, the author of Hebrews says, that's what Jesus is like: He's God's first, best priest. Better than Aaron. Better than Levi. Jesus is the One that goes to bat with God for us.
When we win the major victories in our lives, we have a Melchizedek in Jesus. Do I pay honor to Jesus, like Abram did to Melchizedek? Or do I decide to keep the spoils for myself? Do I remember to thank God for the things I earn with my own sweat? Or do I feel like these things belong to me, that God doesn't deserve credit for them?
Ah, but friends. It never belittles us and our efforts to give glory to God, because God gives us the greater glory. Sometimes we have to wait for it, but we have a reward waiting, if we stay true to Him.
Let us give God the first part of our triumphs, me and you, and see how He also takes part in our sorrows! Let us trust God with our lives, broken and torn as they may be, and see how He gives them back to us, shining and new!
Let us give glory to God!

Hebrews 6:19-20

2007-03-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Ever washed out of anything?

It's a funny term, isn't it? "Wash out". It can mean to clean, to disinfect, to sanitize. To make a dish safe for eating out of. It can mean that, but not when we use it about ourselves.
Wash out means to fail, to give up, to lose badly.
It's a strangely appropriate phrase when we talk about people that have lost all hope: we sometimes say that desperate people have washed out of life.

But hope is a powerful thing. Many hopeful patients fight off terminal diseases, overcome impossible odds for survival, and shock doctors with their regenerative abilities; while patients that give up often languish and die quickly. Hope has the power to transform our lives.
In this verse, the author of Hebrews says that we have a hope that is an anchor, firm and secure.

Okay, I'll tell you one of my pet peeves: I hate being disappointed. Don't you, though? You're counting on something to happen or for somebody to come through for you, and then it just doesn't work out.
I hate that!
But the hope that he's talking about here in Hebrews, this is the kind of hope that won't let you down--it's not going to fall through at the last minute. That's why the author calls it an anchor: because it's going to stay there, and nothing is going to move it or break it or invalidate it.
This is our hope in Christ: it's an immovable object. We can put down our anchor in a storm, and the storm may blow us around and soak us and leave us gasping for breath, but it's not going to move us because our anchor will keep us from drifting off course.
It'll keep us from washing out, you see. Hope is what helps us to get out of bed in the morning when the only thing we have to look forward to is a miserable day. Hope is what keeps us from giving up when we've lost everything else.

This is what we gain in Christ: we gain hope that will not fail us when we need it the most. Our get-rich-quick schemes, our well-laid plans, our mutual funds and IRAs may disappoint us, but this will not: Christ died for us, and He negotiates with God on our behalf, and He loves us.
And that's something we can take to the bank.

Hebrews 6:13-20

2007-03-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

In verse 17, the author says that God wanted to make the "unchanging nature of His purpose" clear to the heirs of His promise. You might think those heirs should be Abraham's descendants, since he's talking about Abraham in the passage; however, the author doesn't--in verse 18, he identifies those heirs with "us", New Testament believers.

Understand this: God's plan has not changed in over 3500 years. The promise God made to Abraham led to the promise He makes to us, because it's the same promise. God's intentions toward mankind have not changed, His feelings have not changed, His mind has not changed. That was true 2000 years ago, and it's still true today.
I Peter says that for God, one day is the same as a thousand years. That seems pretty radical, but look at it from another perspective:
A movie director shoots a film. The director can choose to shoot any event in the movie in any order he wants, because he's not bound by the timeline of the film. He's outside that timeline. For the director, the ending of the movie isn't any different than the beginning; he can look at the ending, he can look at the beginning. He can look at the middle. He can consider any angle of the movie, any second within the movie, at any time--because he's the one creating the timeline within the movie, he isn't bound at all by movie time.
God's the same way. God created time, and He's above it, outside of it. There's nothing miraculous or supernatural about God being outside of time; it's only natural, because He's the One that created it! It's only fitting that a creator should not be constrained by the laws of his creation, isn't it? In the same way, it's very natural that God should see a single moment and a thousand year span as the same thing.

Now, with that in mind, how can I say that God has changed His mind about anything that happens in time? That's a mathematical equation that doesn't add up: change is a function of time, and we've already established that God doesn't exist within the boundaries of time. Even if God were to experience a type of time, it would be on a completely different scale than the one we know.
So, mathematically speaking, we might say that since God doesn't experience time, (being above it and not within its influence) it's impossible for God to change.

Smart person that you are, I'm sure you're asking, But if that's true, then how can we influence God? Why bother praying at all?
And I'll tell you, ...
I don't know. :) Good question. Never said my theory was perfect... but, according to this verse in Hebrews, God's purpose hasn't changed, and I believe that, even if I don't understand it all the way yet.

One thing is certain: God doesn't think of change in the same way we understand it. His plans take millenia to unfold, and He's been working on salvation for a lot longer than you or I can comprehend.
And another thing I know: I factored into God's purpose when He formulated it. So did you. God took each one of us into account when He set this world in motion and spun the stars into the web of the heavens.
And since He thought of you then, before the sun was setting on the world for the very first time, do you really believe He's going to forget about you now? God made the promise to Father Abraham so that we might have hope, you and I, and that promise was made thousands of years ago.
When you read the book of Genesis, you read a book that God wrote for you! Doesn't this tell you that? If this says that God spoke His words to a man two thousand years before the birth of Christ so that I, close to four thousand years later, might read them and believe in them, then how can I say that the book of Genesis doesn't belong in my life?
And it's not just true of Genesis--this is the whole Old Testament. When God made His promise to Noah, He was writing a promise for us. When God gave a sign to Gideon, He was giving us the same sign. When God issued the challenge of Immanuel to King Ahaz, He was showing us the same miracle. When God saved the people of Ninevah from their sins, He was writing to save me from mine.
God's purpose throughout the ages has not shifted or changed, and it will remain constant all the days of my short life: God wills that you and I come to know Him and the salvation He offers, and that we should love Him and spend eternity with Him. He loves us! He's been proving it to us since the dawn of time.

Hebrews 6:4-12

2007-03-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to be faithful?

I have a wife, and I need to be faithful to her. Does that mean I shouldn't sleep with other women? Well, sure--but doesn't it mean a lot more than that?
What do I have to do to be a faithful husband? Do I have to love my wife? Do I have to try to love my wife, even when she's being difficult? Do I need to show her that I love her? Do I need to provide for her? Do I need to do my best to make her happy and to give her what she needs?
Don't I need to do all these things to be a faithful husband? If I stop doing these things, these things I promised her I'd do when we said our vows, I may lose my right to be her husband.
And doesn't that seem fitting and right? Isn't that just?

I have a friend. (More than one, really...) In order to be a faithful friend, I need to spend time with my friend, let him rant when he's having a bad day, care about what he's going through, help him out when he needs it and I can. I need to be there as a friend. If I stop doing those things, I might lose a friend.
Right?

I have a job. In order to be a faithful employee, I need to show up at work, do my work, give it my best effort, work well with other people. I need to contribute to the company's success. If I stop doing that, it's quite possible that I'd lose my job.

All these things seem right and proper to us, don't they? We don't complain about any of these things, because they just seem fair.
So why is it that sometimes we feel like our relationship to God should be different? Sometimes we feel like God owes us salvation--or, maybe we wouldn't put it in those words: maybe we'd say to ourselves, God would never take away my right to be His child.
...
I'd say that's pretty close to being accurate. Read the book of Hosea. I'd say that it would kill God to take away my right to sonship in His family just as much as it would kill me.
Maybe you have kids and you saying that you can't imagine ever giving them up, no matter what they did wrong. I'd say you've got an inkling of how God feels.

And yet, there it is. Sometimes we have to give up relationships that we don't want to give up. Read Hosea chapter 10 and understand that God did not want to punish the nation of Israel, the kingdom of Samaria. He suffered with them long, but He finally destroyed them.
And yet... And yet, hundreds of years later, when good Jews hated the Samaritans for their rebellion against God, when the children of Israel rejected the former Ephraimites with a righteous indignation, even in these times, God came down to earth, a man, and did He pass around the country of Samaria with His jewish brethren? No, but He went to Samaria and He tried to teach the word of God there, just as He did in Jerusalem!
Know this: our God, Whom we serve, is righteous and holy and blameless altogether, not suffering evil and punishing unrighteousness in all; but He is a kind and loving God, eager to forgive those that will repent and slow to punish those whom He loves. He is not willing that any be lost, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth.

In light of this marvellous love and unceasing faithfulness, we have to ask ourselves: what have I promised to God? When I took on baptism, when I entered my covenant with God, what did I promise to give Him? What did I promise to keep for Him and for Him alone? Did I promise to be pure? Did I promise to be righteous? Did I promise to be penitent? Did I promise to trust in God?
If I promised Him any of those things, then what must I do to be faithful to Him? If God treated me the way I treat Him, would I consider Him to be faithful to me?

Hebrews 5:11-6:3

2007-03-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when you're reading the bible, you get the definite feeling that the author has someone in his mind when he's writing a particular passage... This is one of those times. The author's rebuke here comes through very harsh and very clear. "What are you doing?" he chastises in frustration. "You should be teaching others algebra by now, and yet you still can't add or subtract!"

sigh. I'm one of these people--I'm very slow to learn. I hate being that way! People tell me the right way to do something, or they'll tell me that I shouldn't do something because it's going to turn out badly. Do I listen? Of course not! I've got to go and find out for myself. I've learned a lot, and I've made all the mistakes to prove it. Wouldn't life be simpler if we all just listened the first time and believed people when they told us that some things were bad and we shouldn't do them?
Don't get me wrong, I haven't made the worst mistakes in my life. I could've made a lot more damaging mistakes... But I'll swear, I think I've probably made some of the most stupid mistakes!

But God's good, and He's been very patient with me. ;) He's taught me a lot. He's forgiven me a lot, and sometimes a lot more than I've been able to forgive myself.

But enough about me! This verse is about those poor saps like me that look at a verse and look at a verse and never pay attention to it. We live our lives as Christians and call ourselves Christians, and yet, at the end of the day, we can't remember a single thing we've actually done for Christ. This verse is about those of us that should be spending our time doing spiritual calculus, and yet we find that we can't even add up grace and salvation.
We've all been there before. We'll all be there again. This is part of being human. For me and for everybody, at some points in our lives, this verse is meant for us.

So in chapter 6, the author moves on to an exhortation.
I'm not sure I like the way this particular chapter in Hebrews is broken up. Whoever put in the chapters, God bless him, I think didn't stop to consider a daily bible reading plan when he ended chapter 5 here. I mean, I finish chapter 5 and the bible is telling me, "Jonathan! Come on, guy, you're being a loser! Look at what you've learned about being righteous and what you should've learned by now! Get with the program, buddy!" Then I move into chapter 6 and it says to me, "Come on, Jonathan! You can do better!"
I don't know about you, but I'd like to hear that last part along with the first. Otherwise, I'm saying to myself as I go to bed, "Geeze. God doesn't think much of me, does he?"

Right?

But it's not what the author is saying. He's not trying to make the reader feel stupid or to beat herself up for not studying, he's trying to convict us that we need to do better in the future. In saying that, he's telling us that we can do better!
God believes in you! He believes in me! He believes in our ability to understand the bible! If He didn't, then verse 1 wouldn't be here--the passage really would have ended with chapter 5 and verse 14.
But that's not where it ends, and that's not where we should end it. We look at the end of chapter 5, and we tell ourselves, "It's true, I am like a baby. I haven't learned everything that I should!" and it's true. But that realization should not lead me to say, "I've failed Righteousness 101, so I need to drop out and stop trying to be what I'm not."
God forbid!
The very next verse does not say, "Give up, you hypocrite;" the next verse says, "Because of this, we need to move on with our education! We need to do better! We need to learn the things we missed!"

Never, ever come away from the book of Hebrews thinking that you're a failure as a Christian. Look at some of the names in chapter 11: in verse 31, the prostitute Rahab. In verse 32, Gideon, Samson, Jephthah. These are not shining heroes of the Old Testament--look them up! Their stories make you laugh and say, "Well. God's the one that pulled that off!"
And yet, these are the heroes of faith in the book of Hebrews. These are the men and women that believed in God, and that's all they had going for them.

And this is the teaching about righteousness, this is distinguishing good from evil: we believe God, and put our faith in Him. We try to please Him in our lives. We try to give God the glory in our lives.
And we're not good enough or strong enough or important enough to succeed at any of that, and we know it, and God knows it. But we become mighty men and women of faith, we become heroes of the faith, because we believe in God and put our hope in Him.

That's what pleases God. That's how we live what we believe.

Hebrews 5:7-10

2007-03-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

Do you ever suffer from trials or problems? Do you ever feel like life is picking on you?

I think you're probably answering yes. Don't we all have hard times sometimes? That's life.
Now, let me tell you: if I were God, and I chose to come down to earth, I would make sure to scratch all the suffering parts off my itinerary. Sunset in Maui? Yes, I think I'll take two of those. Suffering and dying at the hands of an angry mob? No, thanks--think I'll pass on that one.

That's not the way Jesus thought. Jesus partook of the suffering; this verse says the suffering taught Him obedience. In fact, this verse says that the suffering Jesus went through made Him perfect.
I've talked about this before in this blog. How can Jesus be made perfect, we ask--wasn't He always perfect?
But untested perfection isn't perfection at all.
Have you ever watched infomercials? The people on TV use the product--whatever it is--and it never breaks, and it always works perfectly for them, and it always makes their jobs so much easier. You watch the program and by the end of it, you're thinking, How did I ever get by without that thing? I'd better call now before the special deal goes away!
Isn't that the way it goes?
But have you ever actually bought one of those products? You get it in the mail after 4-6 weeks and you're itching to try it out. You pull it out of the box and fire it up and--what happens? It breaks. Maybe it doesn't work for you at all. Maybe it works sometimes, but not all the time.
I hate that! The TV promise for the perfect product goes up in smoke.

Perfection is easy on TV. Perfection works in lab tests, or in clinical trials, or on paper. But perfection is much harder in real life. This is where perfection breaks down and ideal meets reality.

This is why Jesus had to be 'made perfect'. He couldn't learn obedience until He faced temptation. He couldn't learn perseverance until He had experienced trial. He couldn't understand faithfulness until He had come face-to-face with hardship.
This is what eminently qualifies Jesus to be our high priest. Jesus understands temptation because He was tempted. He understands sin because He's faced sin Himself. He understands weakness because He has been weak. He understands how easy it can be to disobey God, because there were times He didn't want to obey.
And Jesus faced all that, and He remained perfect. Jesus is not perfect on paper or in clinical trials; Jesus went to court, literally, and was proved innocent. He was inspected by the high priests and found to be without blemish.
And after all that, He was sacrificed. According to John 11:49-52, Caiaphas, the high priest, had a vision that Jesus would die for the people.

Mark this: Jesus was brought before the high priests and inspected and found to be without blemish. Then He was sacrificed by the priests for the people.

Jesus was a perfect sacrifice for our sins, and by His blood we are purified of our sins. And by His faithful sacrifice, He proved Himself worthy of the King's place under God and over all creation.

What does this say to us? If Jesus had to suffer so that He could be made perfect by God, we shouldn't be surprised when sufferings come on us. James says in 1:2 that we should be joyful when we have to face trials, because we know that these trials will make our faith stronger.
It's so hard to do, but it makes such a difference when we face the hardships and the difficulties we hate so much and thank God for them. In Hebrews 12, the author says that God only disciplines His children that He loves. When we face hardships that we don't deserve and we try to face them for Christ's sake, it's a sign to us that God loves us and He wants to make us stronger.

How could I end this thought better than Paul? In Romans 8, he says: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager anticipation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God... What, then, shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He Who did not spare His Own Son, but gave Him up for us all--how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God Who justifies. Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus Who died--more than that, Who was brought to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or famine or persecution or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 18-21, 31-39)

May He in His love uphold both you and me in our joys and in our sorrows as we fight within ourselves to serve Him, both in word and in deed and in thought, now and always.

Hebrews 5:4-6

2007-03-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

Even Jesus didn't get to choose the role He would play in this world.

Don't get me wrong--I mean, He accepted His role. He had the choice to obey God or not to obey God. He chose to be faithful. He chose to take up the cross that God appointed for Him. Jesus deserves the credit for the works He did.
But Jesus didn't choose His own works; God appointed them for Him.

Does that tell you something? It says something to me.

We don't choose what we get to be good at, do we? I think it'd be nice to be good at drawing. I'd love to be able to draw pictures that actually look the way I want them to--but just because I'd like to be good at drawing doesn't make me good at drawing. I can work at drawing and I can improve my skill at drawing, but no matter how much I work on drawing, I'll never be a Michaelangelo or a DaVinci or a Monet. Drawing is not one of the things I'm good at.
That's okay, because there are other things I am good at; and it's that way with everybody, right? Everybody's good at something, everybody's made for something.

It's easy to accept that when we're talking about fixing cars or painting or cooking, but what about our spiritual lives? Sometimes we find it hard to accept that we can be good at some things and not at others.
This is what Paul talks about in I Corinthians 12. Some people are born to be preachers, sharing the word of God with everyone they come into contact with. We see these people talking about God to anybody and everybody, going out into the community, going into the prisons--going everywhere and talking about God to everyone and his brother as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Other people are born to be teachers, helping Christians to grow and mature in the gospel. Some are born to be singers and songleaders, encouraging others with their song ministry. Some people are born to be shepherds and leaders, watching over the children of God and nurturing them. Some people are given to be servants, meeting the needs of their fellow Christians in a million ways, both little and big.
We all have different gifts and we all have different ways to serve God, chosen by God. I don't have to feel like I'm less of a child of God or less worthy a disciple because I can't go to Africa as a missionary or as a healer. God doesn't want me to feel like less of a Christian because He gave my brother or sister the gift of preaching the Word to others and He didn't give the same gift to me.
God is with us in every situation we find ourselves. If I'm a single father, God is with me. If I'm single and lonely, God is with me. If I'm teaching three bible classes and leading singing in the evening services, God is still with me.

The point is, God gives us gifts and prepares us good works for every day of our lives. (see Ephesians 2:10) Maybe the good works He gives to us are not flashy or impressive. Maybe our brothers and sisters don't even know about our works for God. That doesn't make them unimportant.

If even Jesus had to accept the role in which God placed Him, how much more should I? Once I learn to accept the gifts God has given me, once I agree to let God use these gifts through me for His glory, I'll see the grace He can work through me.
God's good at working grace, even if it's with a mop and broom--isn't it true? In what wonderful ways can He use the gifts He's given me? And will I allow Him to work in my life today?

Hebrews 5:1-3

2007-03-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes youth or inexperience can be a source of arrogance. Isn't it true? A young man thinks, I'll never fall into that trap; a young woman thinks, I'll never let that happen. It's easy to say these things before the true temptation comes.
Then, after the temptation has come, after we realize the full weight of the situtation, after we realize the true lure of the temptation, after we see for ourselves the promise of sin, then we begin to see that the people that fall into its snare are not as stupid as we once had thought.
If you went to Sunday school as a child, maybe you remember your wonder at the book of Judges, at the stories of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, at the stories of the apostles in their slack-jawed wonder at Jesus' resurrection. How could they have been so dumb? we asked ourselves.
Then the trials come in our own lives, and we find ourselves doubting God and forgetting about God and disbelieving the promises of God, just like God's people before us. Suddenly, the Israelites seem a lot smarter to us, and the temptation seems a lot more wicked.
Whether we fall to temptation or not, it changes us. I believe this is the true reason God allows us to face temptation in our lives: so that we may understand its power, and so we may minister to those still trapped in its power.
Once we have experienced the temptation, we lose the self-righteous wonder that anyone could ever stoop to such a thing; we know how tempting it can be! We know exactly why someone would do it...

This is the story of Jesus. Before Jesus was not a man, not subject to temptation, not subject to change. He was eternal, over time. And then He entered time, and became a man, and underwent all the things that trouble a man.
And when God becomes man, what else can happen but compassion and mercy and grace? This world has never known, nor will ever know again, the miracle that was the life of Jesus. He brought the love of God from the heavens to the earth, and made salvation available to all people so that all people might come to know the wonderful love of God.
This is Jesus' qualification: He's been there. He has faced sin. He knows what we're going through every day. And because of that, Jesus is singularly qualified to be the One and only Savior of us all, the true High Priest and Mediator, the Prince of peace, the King of kings. He does not look at our sin with disgust or revulsion or puzzlement--He looks at us in our sin with compassion.

Since Christ first loved us, it must be our goal to love others, to show the same compassion to them in their iniquities, to help them lay down the heavy burden of their sins at the feet of Jesus the Christ. We have to show the same compassion every day, so we are not judgmental or arrogant toward them--we are humble and loving and gracious with the vilest offenders, because we've done nothing to merit the grace we've received in His name. We are no better than they.
We hypocrites love to stand up and prove our righteousness, because it makes us look righteous. We penitent love to hide in our closets and pour our hearts out to God in prayer, and to shift the credit for our good works to God--because He prepares the good works for us, and has prepared us for them.
I am both a hypocrite and a penitent at various times--I am a man. I am not faithful, but I want to be; and God is faithful, and He heals my heart. Jesus knows my heart, and He knows my desire is for Him, and He has mercy on me, and asks His blessed Father for the same. And it is the same for every person on this earth--I am equally sinful as any other person; they are just as righteous as I am.
But God in my life has made the difference, and He wants to make a difference in their lives, too. I cannot hold my redemption over them, because God didn't give it to me because I was good--He just gave it because I asked. In all good things for me, the credit belongs to God.

Give praise to God for His unyielding love! Give thanks to Christ for His perfect compassion! Praise the Spirit of God for His work of transformation in our lives!
In all things, praise Him Who for our sins shed His blood...

Hebrews 4:14-16

2007-03-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Notice carefully the progression to this verse. In the first part of this chapter, the author urges us to remain true to our faith. In verse 13, he says that God sees all things done in public and private, and that He will judge us for those things.
In verse 14, therefore, he urges us again to stay true to our faith--since we have a high priest--and in verse 16 to approach God with confidence for the help we need.

It's the 'since' that's important here, isn't it? The entire statement leans on the since; if there were no since in the sentence, the rest of the sentence wouldn't be possible. The end of the chapter would read: "Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to Whom we must give account. Sucks to be us!"
But the fact of the matter is, the sentence does have a 'since' and (therefore) it does not suck to be us. Our since is none other than Jesus Christ, Who came down to relieve us of our sins by experiencing them and overcoming them.
And since he became our high priest, we can approach the throne of God with confidence.

What's the role of a high priest?
You may have heard sermons about this chapter before where the preacher exhorted you to be good so that you might enter the sabbath-rest of God. Maybe you've noticed that I haven't talked about that much this chapter. Maybe you think I'm a flaming liberal...
The fact is, this chapter is not about being good. When the author talks about unrighteousness in this chapter, he is not talking about doing bad things.
Is that strange?
When the author talks about unrighteousness in this chapter, he's talking about refusing to believe in God, even after you've heard His word and received His message. Go back to the chapter if you don't believe me. The righteousness the author talks about in this chapter is not the kind of righteousness we can achieve; this righteousness can only be given.
This is a very important point, and it'll come up again by Hebrews 11. The righteousness here is a righteousness that comes from faith in the righteous One, not a righteousness from being obedient.

I make this point because we get to the heart of the matter in verse 14. What does a high priest do? A high priest is one that interceeds with God for people that cannot approach God themselves. The high priest offers sacrifices for the sins of others, prays for others, and asks God to forgive or to bless others.
This is the role Jesus took when He arose from the dead. Jesus made a sacrifice for our sins and continually asks God to forgive us and to bless us for His name's sake.
Since Jesus stands in this role for us, we don't have to give an account for the sins we've committed against God. Jesus already took care of that, in exactly the same way the high priest in Israel used to take care of the sins of Israel on the Day of Atonement: with a sacrifice of blood.
And, since we don't have to account for our sins, we can go to God and ask Him for grace and for mercy. Not only that, but we can be confident that God will hear us and answer our petitions.

Our job is not to make ourselves better Christians. The spirit will accomplish that. Our job is to believe. When we believe in God and in the love He has for us and the sacrifice He's made for us, God will change our hearts if we let Him, making us into better Christians, better people. We will not be perfect. We will be made holy.

Hebrews 4:12-13

2007-03-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Does verse 13 seem scary to you? "Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to Whom we must give account."
If you've got something to hide, this is a very frightening passage. We want skeletons in our closet to stay in our closet, don't we? That's why we put them in the closet in the first place... we're afraid of what will happen if people find out these things about us. We're afraid of what they will think about us. For some of us, we're afraid of the consequences that may catch up to us.
But for those that don't have anything to hide, this passage is very reassuring.

Have you ever been wrongly accused of something? If you've got brothers or sisters, you probably have. Sometimes we're called to answer for things we didn't do. Our superiors, whether they're parents or bosses or elders, have to judge us in these situations--but they're not always qualified to make a judgment, because they often don't have all the facts.
Wouldn't it be scary if your boss were sitting in the judgment seat on the last day? How about your friend, or your coworker? How about your rival?
Would you want any of these people making the final decision about whether your soul was going to spend eternity with God or without Him? For that matter, would you want any person?

We often say it: "He's only human," and what we mean by that is, "He doesn't know everything," or, "He can't do everything." That's why sometimes people get punished unfairly, by parents, by bosses--sometimes even by the government.
But this verse says that God will never judge someone unfairly.

Jesus said in Matthew 6, "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." God doesn't just see the bad things we do in secret--He also sees the good things. He sees everything, and He knows everything, and He understands everything.

Have you ever done something for someone, trying to be nice to them, and they misunderstood it? We misunderstand each other often, because we can't read each other's minds--can we? It's what Paul is talking about in I Corinthians 4:5. He says, "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of people's hearts..."
We look at other peoples' words and actions and judge them by what they say and do--we have to, because it's all we have to base our decisions on. God doesn't have to rely on these external things, because He sees and knows the hearts of men. God can make a righteous judgment, because His judgments aren't based on the outcome of the action; they're based on the motivation behind the action.
An evil man can do a good work for selfish gain, but God won't rule him righteous because of his good work--he only did the work out of evil motives. In the same way, a good man may do an evil act for good reasons. God won't judge the man as evil just because of the one evil act, because the man's heart was just.
We can't even imagine the kind of justice God has in store for us. In this world, we look at our judges and say, "That's not fair!" or, "Our system isn't perfect..." But when God judges, everyone is going to proclaim, "He is just and righteous altogether!"

God cuts through the appearance of things and sees to the heart of the matter, and His word is no less discerning. When we apply the word of God to our lives, we find it powerful and sharp, cutting away the false pride and artificial righteousness we add to our lives. God's word will not leave us unchanged, if we put our faith in Him and look to it for guidance.

Let us put our trust in Him and trust in His word for our lives. Let us accept His righteousness and His wisdom, instead of seeking to fabricate our own.
Let us ask Him for the truth we need in our lives, for He will not fail to give it.

Hebrews 4:4-11

2007-03-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

"There remains, then, a sabbath-rest for the children of God."

God's sabbath-rest is about more than relieving exhaustion. We rest because we're tired. Why did God rest? Was He tired after creating the universe?
I certainly hope not!

Back in Genesis, it says that God created stuff each day, and that He looked at His work and said that it was good. On the sixth day (God worked 6 days a week, doncha know), God created mankind and He said his work was very good. On the seventh day, He rested--and why? In Genesis 2:2-3, it tells us: "By the seventh day God had finished all the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done." God rested because He was finished with His work!
It's a good reason to rest, isn't it? Maybe if He'd been a little slower we'd have to work an extra day before our weekend, yes?

And so God's sabbath-rest is not about getting a break from work--it's about God finishing His work. When we choose to celebrate the sabbath in our lives, we're not celebrating being worn out after a hard week--are we? No! We're celebrating the work that God accomplished when He created the world.

Look at the quote from Psalm 95: "Today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts." David is talking about worshiping God--in verse 6, he writes: "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Then he writes his exhortation, quoted in Hebrews, and then goes on to recount the wandering in the wilderness and concludes in verse 11 with: "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter My rest.' "
If I said to you, "Let's worship God. Don't harden your heart as our fathers did, when God said, Because of their disobedience, they're never going to enter My rest," what would you get out of my statement?
The author of Hebrews concludes that the sabbath-rest is not something that is past--that the sabbath-rest is something that is ongoing, that children of God continue to gain or to lose, even today. "For if Joshua had given them rest," he writes in verse 8, "God would not have spoken about another day." He continues: "There remains, then, a sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. " (v. 9-10)

Notice that when the people of God keep this rest, they're doing it to become more like God: "just as God did from His." The sabbath-keeper is joining in God's activity (we might say following His example) to honor Him. In doing the same thing that God did, the child of God gets to be more like God.
Imagine a father at his workbench. The father works with his tools while his child looks on. When the father finishes with the tool, what does his child do? Doesn't the son or daughter try to grab the tool so that he can do the same thing his or her father was doing? Doesn't the child try to do the same things that his father does?
That's what we're like, as children of God--or rather, that's what we should be like. We try to do the things that our Father does, to be the way our Father is. We try to become like Him. And why? It's not because we admire Him or love Him or adore Him--and it is all those things. It's because He's our father, and we want to be just like Him!

Now look at verse 11. Not content to follow his point to conclusion, the author of Hebrews has to go on and to show us what his message means for our lives. Look! "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following in their example of disobedience."
Draw whatever you need to out of this verse, but whatever else you find, draw this: we need to strive to be like God. It's what this verse is all about. We need to yearn to become like God--and what negative example does the author present? The people in the wilderness that didn't believe God.
What's the "example of disobedience" the author talks about in verse 11? Isn't it the same example he's been talking about all along? In verse 2, he said "...the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith." In 3, he says: "Now we who have believed enter that rest..." The quote in verse 7 is "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." The context of the quote in Psalm 95 is worshipping God!

And so, the author of Hebrews exhorts us: "Do not follow their example! Do not give up your faith! Believe God! Worship Him as God! Put your trust in God, and He will show you His rest!"

We are not those that refuse to believe in God's promise, are we? We are not those that grumble and complain that life in the world was so much better than life with God. We may have doubts sometimes, and we often have fears, and we sometimes fail in our faith. But we do love God, and we do strive for the rest God promises, and we do cry out, like the father of the demon-possessed cried to Jesus: "I do believe, Lord! Help me in my unbelief!"
And He is faithful.

Worship Him.

Hebrews 4:1-3

2007-03-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

Don't misunderstand my previous postings, and mark well what the writer of Hebrews says here: it is possible to fall short of God's requirements for His children. It's not automatic--you can't just say, well. He's a human being--you know, he must be a child of God.
Read the author of Hebrews well in verse 2: the gospel of God was of no value to certain of the Israelites--and why?
Because they went fishing instead of praying on the Sabbath, perhaps?

The word of God had no value to these "people of God" because they didn't have any faith in the words.

Well, that much is obvious--I mean, look at what they were saying to Moses back in Exodus!

In the same way, the gospel of God is not helpful to us if we don't believe it.
Shall I say it again? It's so important: the word of God is of no use to us if we don't put our faith in it.
That means the Bible! Paul says "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." He's not talking about a revelation from an angel!

There are times we love the bible, and in those times it's easy to believe it. There are times when the bible affirms our beliefs, makes us feel good about our faith and our service to God, convicts us to do better. Those times, it's easy to believe the bible. Anybody can believe the bible when it's easy to believe.
But, later in this book, the writer of Hebrews says, "The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the division of soul and marrow. It judges the thoughts and motives of the heart." Sometimes the bible cuts into our hearts and tells us we need to change the way we think and the way we act. It's these times that test our faith in the word of God. Some people choose to shrug their shoulders and say, "Well. It's an old, crusty book anyway," and to move away from the word.
Don't!
Don't allow yourself to be mystified by the bible; search out the meaning, wrestle with the scriptures daily; contend with God over the truth of His word! Put the word of God to the test if you don't believe it!

Jacob wrestled with the angel until it relented and gave him a blessing. Would that I were as tenacious in my study of the bible! In those many, many places where I just don't understand the word as I should, may God grant me the courage to wrestle Him to the ground until He yields and blesses me with knowledge from the word.
Would that not be worth a few sleepless nights, I ask? Would that not be worth a multitude of sleepless nights?

May we be a people powerfully in love with a powerful message from the heart of our Creator! May we trust it to shape our hearts and minds as we struggle to become like Him! May I never take the easy road, saying, "Well. It was written 2,000 years ago. Who knows what it means?"

Let it never be!

Hebrews 3:14-19

2007-03-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

Is it a sin to disbelieve God?
Verses 17-19 seem to indicate so. The people sinned, and God was angry with them because they sinned, and it was their unbelief that kept them from His reward.

God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt through powerful miracles, and He sustained them in the desert with powerful miracles. He protected them from harm with powerful miracles.
Yet, when things got difficult for them, they chose to doubt Him.

God isn't working miracles in my life of the same magnitude as He did for the sons of Moses, but He is working in my life. I don't rail against God and defy Him as absolutely as did the children of Israel, but I do defy Him.

What is my disbelief? Where am I rebelling against God in my life? At what point, or in which struggle, do I disregard God and choose not to trust Him?
There are those places, aren't there? We live our lives and try to live them for God, but we fall short of our own expectations so often--and our expectations are so bland compared to what God has in store for us! How can He continue to put up with a loser like me?

It's funny, but God loves us a lot more than we give Him credit for...

You know, God has a lot more influence on your life than you may give Him credit for. He did make you, after all. Is it so hard to believe that He can mold your heart to be more what He wants you to be?
We let ourselves down in so many ways, but our letdowns are not necessarily God's. God does not expect us to perform our lives without flaw--if He wanted people that could do that, He would've made us that way. God wanted people that could dream better than they could perform, He wanted people that wanted more of themselves than they could accomplish.
God wanted people that were always striving to be better than they are, and that's exactly what He made.
Don't feel guilty when you let yourself down! Take it for what it is: an opportunity to improve. Take the chance to pray about it. Is this really what God wants me to be doing? Is this the best way I can serve God in my life? --and if it is, then strive to do it better next time.
Sometimes we fall down because we're human and we mess up the things God plans for us. Sometimes we fall down because our plans are human.

God loves us when we fail Him, but He wants us to keep striving and to never give up on our faith! He's there for us when it's easy and when it's hard, so we keep looking to Him for strength and for guidance in our lives.

Hebrews 3:7-13

2007-03-03T05:24:00.000-08:00

Take a look at Psalm 95, the source of this quote.
"Come, let us sing with joy to the Lord;
Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation." (Psalm 95:1)

This song of joyful praise ends,
"Do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion...
So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter My rest.'" (v 8,11)

The author of Hebrews concludes,
"See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." (Hebrews 3:12-13)

What makes God angry?
The message of Psalm 95 is the message of this passage: Praise God! Worship Him joyfully, for He is worthy of praise! Worship Him, because He has saved you and given you good things and taken care of you! Worship Him, because He takes care of you daily!
For if we do not; if we, rather, choose to quarrel with God and reject Him as God, then we will not know His peace.
This is a scary passage, and many preachers will play upon the fear it invokes. Don't be excited into rash judgments or false beliefs just because a silver-tongued preacher breathes brimstone at you and inundates you with hellfire clippings of bible. Be convicted by the word of God, and let it guide you into truth.
However, don't gloss this verse over in your mind, either--it is scary, and it's intended to be. This is David's warning to God's people that they need to worship God and to keep Him in their minds.

But what was it that made God angry, and why does it apply to this message? David's reference comes from Exodus 17, and you need to turn there if you want to get to the bottom of the matter.
The Israelites are thirsty because they have no water, which is understandable. They turn to Moses and say, "Why'd God bring us out here without any water? We were better off without Him!" This, after they'd seen Him provide for them... The previous chapter, God first gave them mana and quail. They were eating the mana God had provided for them, but they were accusing Him of not taking care of them.
That's just wrong. No? You may be able to imagine God's anger at this.

God takes care of us. He provides for us, even when things are hard. He saves us, even when we don't deserve it. What's our response to all this? What should be our response?

Hebrews 3 is about cause and effect. God takes care of us without grumbling, so we should praise Him joyfully. It's only natural! When the people of Israel did the unnatural thing and grumbled against God and rejected Him after His care for them, God did the natural thing and got (rightfully!) angry at them.
Did He stop taking care of them? Did He disown them as His people?
No; He forgave them--but He didn't let them go unpunished. He gave their reward to their children, instead of letting them enjoy it.

We receive care, just as did the people of Israel. We receive God's love, and we receive the same salvation from evil. Our response is the same: natural love, natural praise. If, instead, we offer unnatural hatred and rejection, God's natural (and rightful) response is anger.
Will He disown us? Will He not forgive us? Perhaps, but how will God reward us if we reject His blessings as a curse? How can we receive blessings from God if we believe that?

Make no mistake, rest here is a reward--and that reward is for the faithful.
May we be faithful today as we receive and enjoy God's blessings.

Hebrews 3:3-6

2007-03-02T05:30:00.000-08:00

Look at the wording interaction between Moses and Jesus in these verses: in verse 2, Jesus is faithful, just as Moses was faithful "in God's house". In verse 3, Jesus is worthy of greater honor, as "a builder is worthy of greater honor than the house." In verse 4, God is the builder of everything (and the house). In verse 5 and the beginning of verse 6, Moses is again a servant, and Jesus is the son over the house. In the end of verse 6, we (and, by extension, Moses) are God's house.
As children and servants of God, we both are God's building work and servants in it. In both respects, we are subordinate to Jesus, Who is (with God) the builder of the house as we are the house and the son over it as we are servants in it.

Ever thought of yourself as a block of wood? Sometimes I think like one...
We are the bricks of God's house, the slats in Jesus' cabin. He builds us collectively into a house for His Spirit, as Paul mentions in I Corinthians 6:19. Together, we make God's house.
If that seems like a funny metaphor to you, think about it from the point of view of the ancient Jews. What was the house of God? Where was it? Until it was destroyed, the house of God was the temple in Jerusalem. After it was destroyed, the Jews didn't have a place on earth where God dwelt.
But for the Christians, the house of God no longer stood by stone and mortar, but in the hearts of the believers. Together, the body of Christians referred to as the church makes up a temple to God, a dwelling place for the Spirit of God. Each brick makes up the whole, and each Christian has his place in the house as does each brick.

At the same time, we serve inside God's house. For the Jews, it was the priests that served in a temple built by human hands, making sacrifices and maintaining the temple. For us, we serve in a temple not built by human hands as we make living sacrifices to God every day and as we do our work, blessing and encouraging the people of God, the temple of God.
Important as we are to the work of God, our roles can never compare to the role of Jesus--just as the role of a servant can never compare to the importance of the son, just as the role a brick plays in holding up a house can never compare to the importance of the builder in setting up the house.
Jesus is worthy. In bringing all men to God, He claimed worth to receive all praise and honor and glory and power, which will also be given to Him by God, and which He will use to God's glory and praise. He was faithful to God, therefore He is found worthy of praise.

Is Jesus the builder in my life? Does He control the things I choose to do and the reactions I choose to make?
I find that, far too often, He is not.
But, just as Jesus is faithful to God, He is also faithful to me, to forgive me and erase my sins. I bow to Him for forgiveness and look to Him for guidance, and He gives me all I need.

May He ever be praised!

Hebrews 3:2

2007-03-01T06:15:00.000-08:00

Jesus was faithful to God--but notice here. The author says Jesus was faithful, "just as Moses was faithful."
Do those two compare?
We're used to not measuring up to the life of Jesus. We think: Oh, I could never be that righteous. Oh, I could never be that good. And we're right, of course.
The funny thing about faithfulness is, it's completely scalable. (in drafting terms!) You're either righteous or you're not righteous; you can't be just a little bit righteous. Either you're loving or you're not; you can't be halfway loving. You're either truthful or you're not truthful--there's no halfway!
Faithfulness is different. You can be faithful in little things the same as you can be faithful in big things, and that's all God expects from us. He never says we have to have as much faith as Moses did or as Jesus did, because it's not about an amount. We have to have a common faith with Jesus and with Moses: a faith in God. For us, a faith in Christ.
Jesus told about the servants with the talents of gold. The master gave to one servant some enormous sum of cash and told him to take care of it, then he gave the next servant a smaller sum, then to the last servant he gave a much smaller sum of cash. All he asked was that these men take care of the money he'd entrusted to them.
The man with the huge sum was faithful with his master's money--but notice, so was the man with less money. It was the servant that gave up that was counted for loss...

I don't know about you, but I don't have the strength of Moses or the courage of Peter or the love of John, and I doubt I ever will. These men were amazing men of faith.
But the faith they had is our faith, too, and our faithfulness in it is just as valid, just as important to God as was theirs. Even if I'm just being faithful to God by serving a cup of water while Peter's up there preaching up a storm, I'm still being faithful.

If the author of Hebrews had known me, would he have written: "Jesus was faithful to God, just like Jonathan is"? Would he have written that about you?

At the end of the day, it's not about how many souls you've brought to Christ or about how many churches you've planted or even about how much glory you've brought to God's name that day. At the end of the day, what matters to God is that you've listened for His guidance in your life, that you've counted the things He's given you as His and not yours, that you've trusted in Him to get you through the day. He's made some to be apostles and some to be prophets, sure. But He's also made some to be ushers and some to be janitors and some to be mothers.
I don't have to be making water come out of rocks to be faithful. I just have to be looking for God's will in my own life, and striving for it.

Let's strive to be God's servants today, to take care of the things He's given us, to think of Him more than we think of those things. Let's strive to be faithful, just as Jesus was faithful.

Hebrews 3:1

2007-02-24T05:21:00.000-08:00

"Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest Whom we confess."

This may seem like a preacher's transition phrase. However, if you want a good one-liner about the book of Hebrews, I think you have it here.

The writer has just finished in chapter 2 telling us that Christ named us as his holy brothers: see verse 11. God brought us to glory; Jesus wrote our salvation.
There's no more heavenly calling than this!
Then the author concludes his however: "fix your thoughts on Jesus." This is what his lesson is about. It started with Jesus in Hebrews 1:2 and it concludes with Him in 13:15 and 21.
Jesus is the apostle sent by God--this the author has been telling us since chapter 1. ("in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son..." 1:2)
Jesus is also the high priest appointed by God. This is what the author is about to get into.

Watch the word therefore in the book of Hebrews. It occurs 16 times in 13 chapters; it seems to be the author's favorite transition word. It builds up from the first chapter, a prophetic quote applied to Jesus: "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has set You above Your companions by anointing You with the oil of joy," and goes on to the final therefor in chapter 13: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess His name."

Maybe we should foster some therefore in our lives today... How often do you go through the day, reacting to the day as it unfolds? Do you sometimes find yourself "just getting by" through the day? It happens to me a lot.
But the book of Hebrews is all about the greater therefore: the Impetus to which we should be reacting every moment of every day. God created us, therefore we should praise Him--but He didn't stop there. God saved us in His Son Jesus Christ.
God saved me today through Jesus Christ. What will my therefore be?

Hebrews 2:15ff

2007-02-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

And so, the greatest irony of salvation is that we have been saved, not by an all-powerful, omnipotent being, but by a normal human being. We can't look on the face of God or we shall surely die--but men looked on the face of Jesus and saw another guy, just like themselves...
This is the wonder of all creation: the Right Hand of Creation came down and became an average human--and it was in the truest sense of the word, for He came not as a human king but as a normal blue-collar worker. The steel worker walking the girders at your downtown construction site does not look much different than did the man Jesus, for that was His niche in life.
God, you see, had the idea of everyman down long before our playwrights. Jesus Christ was a perfect, noble, righteous man as no other, but He was a man we could look at, a man we can follow, a man Who understands us and our needs and our weaknesses. We understand the difficulties He faced as He understands ours.

It is to be His brethren that we are called, to be made in His likeness. When people look at us, as we grow in the Spirit and in Christ, they will see the resemblance between us and Him. This is as it should be!
My sisters look a lot like me. I look like my mother and father, who look like their brothers and sisters. There's a family resemblance, and when I go back to their hometowns, I tell people my family name and they say, that's right! You look just like them!
So if we are called to be the family of God in Christ, the same rule applies: when I introduce myself to someone in Maine or Los Angeles or Cairo and I tell them to Whom I'm related, they should look at me and say, yes, you're right! I can see the resemblance!
It's funny, that. How does a Russian Christian look? A Japanese Christian? A Brazilian Christian? An African Christian? In so many respects, these people are so different--and yet, having lived their lives for One man, having been born into one Word and with one baptism, these people can worship God together as one. It's truly inspiring.

What's the end of this matter? Jesus! Consider Jesus, the man Who "did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness." (Philippians 2:6-7) He is our model and saviour, the Lover of our souls, the Righteous One, the only Son of God. And He is our brother.

Hebrews 2:14

2007-02-21T05:47:00.000-08:00

"Him who holds the power of death." God?

Funny, no. "Him who holds the power of death" in this passage is Satan.
Satan is the father of death, no? It was he that tempted the woman in the garden; it was on his account that man fell. So as God is the father of life, Satan is the father of death.
So it is in all things: God fathers life, Satan fathers death from life. God fathers love, Satan fathers lust from love. God fathers need and desire, Satan fathers envy, jealousy, and all manner of evil ambition. Satan does not create evil from nothing; he is not a Creator. He merely twists the things God has made.
As we are made by God, so was Satan. We are free to make our own choices; so was he. We are free to use God's creation to our own creative ends; so is he.
Satan is not the one with the power of death because it is something he created or innovated. He has the power of death because he is the cause of death; he drove men to death at the beginning, and he does so now. He wants death for you, and he wants death for me, because he chose the evil instead of the good.

God gives us that choice. Through Jesus Christ, Who took on our humanity for us, we have the choice to become righteous. It's a hard road, and it's not a quick one; but it is a journey He will make with us.
God made us to need: we need food to survive. We need water for our bodies to function. We need companionship to stimulate our minds and to keep us grounded in reality. But we need more than this. We need purpose, we need meaning. We need for there to be a reason we're here. Scientists find that reason in science, but we find our reason in God.
How do we fulfill that need? Can we find that fulfillment in oaken pews or in golden crosses? Is it in wooden statues built by men?
God has given us the means to experience closeness with Him, and it's not in cults or in rituals or in icons or in the world around and the sky above. Our means to learn of God, to be with God, is in the Word of God--He has given us no better means by which we can determine His innate attributes or His glory, and He has given us no other way to realize His wishes for us.
It is by the Word that we know Jesus Christ, by the Spirit and from the Word that we learn of God, by our knowledge and faith in the Word that we discern and follow what is good.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to Your word.
I seek You with all my heart;
Do not let me stray from Your commands.
I have hidden Your word in my heart
That I might not sin against You.
Praise be to You, O LORD;
Teach me Your decrees.
With my lips I recount
All the laws that come from Your mouth.
I rejoice in following Your statutes
As one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on Your precepts
And consider Your ways.
I delight in Your decrees;
I will not neglect Your word.
-Psalm 119:9-16

May this be my prayer and yours all the days of our (young) lives!

Hebrews 2:11-13

2007-01-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

The reference in verse 12 seemse to be from Psalm 22, the same psalm that Jesus quoted on the cross: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46) and the one with the prohetic verse "They divide my garments among them /and cast lots for my clothing." (Psalm 22:18; Matthew 26:35) It's in this psalm that David declares "I will declare Your name to my brothers; /in the congregation I will praise You;" and the writer of Hebrews attributes this line to Jesus, as well.
In the context of the psalm, David says the quote as a result of God saving him from his enemies. The emphasis is on the praise to God. In a tactic common to New Testament writers, (see Matthew 3:1, Isaiah 40:3; Romans 3:4, Psalm 51:4) the author of Hebrews shifts the focus of the verse to the indirect object: to the ones to whom David was declaring his praise to God.
Jesus is declaring God's praise to His brothers, to the ones He came to save.

Again, the writer of Hebrews quotes Isaiah 8: "I will put my trust in Him;" and, "Here am I, and the children God has given me." This and chapter 7 in Isaiah have the Immanuel prophecy: God gives Isaiah a son, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, and before the child grows old enough to learn how to speak, He says that Assyria will take over Syria and Ephraim.
I love Isaiah 7. We men see men like Gideon or Moses telling God, "I don't believe You unless You give me a sign!" and we think, How brazen and audacious these men are to question the word of God! And yet, here Isaiah tells King Ahaz: "Ask God for a sign, so He can prove His word to you;" and Ahaz says, "No way! I'm not going to test God!" And what was the result? Isaiah says, "You're getting on God's last nerve!"
Is it possible that God has more patience for those that are too afraid to believe in Him without some kind of proof than for those that refuse to test God at all?
God judges the hearts of men. (I Samuel 16:7) We look at the actions of faithful men and wonder, "How can God put up with this;" and yet, these actions we wonder at are those same actions that make God smile.
God's ways are not our ways!

The quote in Hebrews 2:13 is "I will put my trust in Him." In Isaiah (8:17), the people are frightened because of the Syro-Ephraimic alliance and because Israel and Syria are planning to invade Judah. God tells Isaiah, Don't worry about your enemies. "The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, /He is the one you are to fear, /He is the one you are to dread." (v. 13) Isaiah should put his trust in God.
Verses 14 and 15 are a little troubling: "and He will be a sanctuary; /but for both houses of Israel He will be /a stone that causes men to stumble /and a rock that makes them fall. /And for the people of Jerusalem he will be /a trap and a snare. /Many of them will stumble; /they will fall and be broken, /they will be snared and captured." (See I Peter 2:7; I Corinthians 1:22.) The people of Israel and Judah had stopped listening to the words of the prophet of God, so God told Isaiah to close the book and put it back on the shelf. (v. 16)
Peter's commentary on this verse in I Peter 2:8b is perhaps the best: "They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for." To those that will not obey the word of God, even God becomes nothing more for them than a rock of offense.

The last quote in Hebrews 2:13 is "Here am I, and the children God has given me." The last half of the verse in Isaiah (8:18) reads "We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, Who dwells on Mount Zion." For Isaiah it was literal: God gave him a son as a sign to King Ahaz. For the writer of Hebrews, the focus of the verse is the children of God.

We have been created sons and daughters of God, part of God's family; and yet, we are flesh, different from God and separated from God by the weakness of our flesh, inherited from the sin of Adam. In order to open the door as a mediator between God and man, the Word came as a man and became a son of god. He was not arrogant or contemptful of his lesser brethren, but was born of a woman in order that He might become our full-blooded brother and might both show us how we're supposed to live for God and restore us to God.

Does that unspeakable event astound you as it ought?

God changed--the Timeless, the Eternal One, the Maker, the Boundless and Infinite God, Creator of Time and Lord of All. Infinity was His very essence, and yet, the Word changed His essence and became a mortal man, a son of god. This was something that our world had never seen: Infinity had become finite; the Absolute had undergone a metamorphosis into shifting, unstable, unfaithful flesh.
And yet, the man Jesus was still just the same being as ever He had been: He was everything man was supposed to be, He was the Will of God in the flesh. He was tempted, yet He was faithful. He was mortal, yet He was true. He was human, yet He was unblemished by evil. God had become (do those three words shake your soul the way they need to?) flesh, but in Him flesh became holy.
What else was it but a new archetype, a new paradigm, a new world? Through Adam, flesh had become corrupted and given to evil. Through Christ, flesh became redeemed and sanctified. (Romans 5:12ff)

And all this because Jesus was not proud, but subjected Himself to the Will of God and allowed Himself to be humbled and to come in human likeness. (Philippians 2)
This man, this Christ, is our true brother. If Jesus came down to men that would crucify Him, to a world that would hate Him, to men like me that would reject and shame Him, and called us brothers, and died for us, what is there for me? How can I look on a fellow man as anything other than my brother, when the Catalyst of Creation came down to be counted as my brother and to save me from my sins? How can I look on someone with anything other than compassion, when eternal God has looked on me with such compassion? How can I not serve my Lord Jesus, when He has proved Himself my King and my Savior?

Hebrews 2:10

2007-01-02T06:07:00.000-08:00

Why would it be fitting that God should make Jesus perfect through suffering? Is that an intuitive statement for you?
Peter likens testing to gold, which passes through fire and is purified. The writer of Hebrews, like the Psalmist of old, is saying that Jesus had to suffer to be made perfect.
Maybe you're asking why Jesus had to be made perfect? I mean, He was perfect, right? How much better could He get?
--and yet, think about it: what good is being perfect if you're untested? I can tell you that I play a perfect game of soliataire, and that may be true, (it isn't) but until you've seen my solitaire game it really doesn't matter whether it's perfect or not.

This is really important.
The being that became Jesus was perfect already. He didn't need to be any more perfect than He already was. He did not come to earth in order to become perfect.
However, what good was His perfection to us? Until we had seen what the perfect will of God was, what it meant in human form, what good did it do us that the will of God was perfect?
We're sensual creatures--we emulate the things we see and the things we perceive. We model behavior we see and conceptualize in our minds. We create things we image. We start from an idea, a concept, and we make that idea a reality.
Now what good does it do a man if I tell him that God is perfect love and don't show him? The man can appreciate the perfect love of God; he can believe in the perfect love of God; he can even tell others about the perfect love of God--but unless he knows what that love actually looks like, he's going to be preaching a fantasy.
Jesus came to earth so that He might be made perfect in our eyes, so that we would know what perfection looked like, so that we could know that salvation comes through the perfect Christ. Worth can only be proved in testing. Faithfulness can only be proved in suffering.

Jesus came, and suffered, and died. He lived faithful to God's will, and He died obediently because it was His Father's will. He proved Himself perfect so that we could know that He is worthy to be our Lord.

He did that. The question today is, what are we going to do about it?

Hebrews 2:5-9

2006-12-19T05:45:00.000-08:00

We live in a world that is not subjected to Christ. If it were, how could our worldly natures be inclined to sin? Why would it be so difficult to do the good and to shun the evil?
No--this world is a place of independance from God, and it cannot subject itself to God by its nature. This is why the new world is so important, a world described to the Israelites as the kind of place where the lion and the lamb can be friends. Paul said that this world is groaning in anticipation for the glory to be revealed in it. The writer of Hebrews says the world to come has been subjected to Christ, and that God has put everything in it under Him and in His authority.
Consider, though, a world subjected to Christ: a world in which our natures led us to worship Christ and to serve Him. This would be a world in which we would no longer cry out, "Wretched man that I am--who will save me from this body of death?" This would be a world that honored the birth of Christ every day instead of one day a year, and that remembered the death of Christ every day instead of one season a year...
Is this not what we want as Christians? Can we not join with St. Peter: "Lord, come quickly!" This life has its joys, but that life will be joy. Shall we not anticipate and yearn for the revelation of Christ's glory, the subjugation of this world, the final atonement for sins and the death toll for sin in this world? Christ has saved us and when His perfect goodness and righteousness is fully revealed in us, we shall no longer have anything before God of which to be ashamed.
And I long for that day! A day when shortcomings, famines, shortages, insufficiencies, needs, wants, are remembered no more--a day when every desire is fulfilled in Him that fills all in all--it is for that day we wait, and the world with us, in our best and most humble service to our beloved Lord. And even to us, our best seems but meager scraps next to the unsurpassed glory of the Christ; and yet, we serve Him because that is His will.
The will of perfect, holy God is that I, depraved man that I am, should do good works in His name and for His glory. I fall to my knees and cry, like Peter, "Get away from me, Lord! for I am a sinful man;" and yet, still He calls to me.
It's good that God does His will and not ours, isn't it? Aren't unanswered prayers just a blessing?
But there it is. God sent the agent of Creation down to earth, a little lower than the angels, as this man Jesus. And the man Jesus did everything that was spoken of by the prophets: He fulfilled the law of God and the prophets, and then He fulfilled the will of God by dying on a cross for the men that hung Him there and for you and for me and for everyone else that lived once in rebellion to God.
And now the Christ, now Jesus, reigns crowned with glory and with honor over the world that will come, an anointed King waiting only for His kingdom to be presented to Him by His Father.

Praise Him forever!

He's the One we serve, the One that saved us, the One that spurned equality with God, instead seeking to please God, the One that gave His life for us. He's the One we praise and worship and adore.
He's the One we live for, or the One we strive to live for.
It's by Him we're blessed of the Father, and through Him we're saved.

Praise Him.

Off Topic

2006-12-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

How often are we reminded of how short life truly is?
When we're busy, we so often forget... I put my family off, my wife, my life. I put God off until tomorrow because I'm working today.
Work is important... it's important to work, but at what point does work begin to take over my life in an unhealthy way? I'm not doing what I love, but I try to do my duty, to fulfill my obligation faithfully, to give of my best to my employer.
I feel like a slave to money, but it's my duty and I'm bound to it.
If today were the last day I had, would God know how much He meant to me? Would my wife Debra? Would my friends?
Do I know how much they mean to me, or do I take them for granted? Sometimes I feel like I'm sleeping through life, like my duty and my work has so numbed me to life that I've lost all sense of feeling, of wonder, of being alive. But it's what I'm supposed to be doing.
Responsibility can be a crushing, heartless thing if you follow it without sensitivity to others. It's to others that I am responsible, but if I discharge my duty without thinking or caring for those others, am I fulfilling my responsibility at all?
But how can I fulfill my duty and find the time to show the people I love, the people that are the reason I'm working, that I love them as well?
I'm not wise enough to know the answer to that... I've got to work! but, I ... have people I love, and I have things I want to do in my life, and I want to serve God, and sometimes I feel like I can't do any of that because work dominates everything else.
I hate that feeling, and I hate wishing that I had more time for the people I love. I hate wishing I had more time to spend with God.
It feels like I'm discharging a lesser duty and failing in the ones that count, but I can't get out of the job... We need the money, so what can I do?
I'm trapped.

Dear Father, I'm sorry for the many times I've failed to give You the time and the glory and the honor in my life. You deserve it; You deserve it always, but I feel like work is eating me up and I don't feel like I have anything left to give. Give me the love to show my love to the people I care about, the people You've given me to care about, and give me the strength to make time for them, even when I'm exhausted and don't feel like I have any time left. Give me the wisdom to know what's important in my life and the discernment to recognize the good thing to do and the good time to do it.
I'm so weak and so clumsy and so tired, Lord--I'm so tired!--and I need You so badly. Help me, my precious Lord! I love You and I want to serve You! Save me in my distress!

I lift up my eyes to the hills-
From where does my help come?
My help comes from Jehovah,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip;
He Who watches you will not slumber.
Indeed, He Who watches over Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah watches over you--
Jehovah is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
Jehovah will keep you from all harm--
He will watch over your life;
Jehovah will watch over your coming and going
Both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121

Amen.

Hebrews 2:1-4

2006-11-23T04:57:00.000-08:00

Having grown up in the church, it surprises me when I think that Jesus never "attended church" as we know it. He was a regular attendant and a leader of the Jewish synagogues, which was right and proper for a Jewish man. But did you ever stop to think that Jesus didn't set up the church?

It's a lot like the American president, actually. You know, of course, that the American people don't elect the president. Their votes elect the electoral college, which, in theory, votes on their behalf for the president. In reality, the electoral college has the power to vote however they see fit.
Jesus was the same way. He didn't set up His church; He appointed the men that would set it up, and those men had the power to set up whatever they wanted.

We saw the DaVinci Code the other night. I've never read the book, but I really liked the movie--it was a great story! It amuses me, however, that new stories with new promotion can stir up the oldest of ideas...
It's nothing new that men are disclaiming the deity of Jesus. The writers John, Jude, Peter, even Paul were dealing with this same issue within one century of Jesus' birth. The men Jesus had appointed, His closest friends, fought those that claimed He was not the son of God. Isn't that interesting?

Anyway. Jesus did not set up the first church, and I just have to guess that He knew what He was doing.
Case in point: take Martin Luther. The man Luther was a devout disciple of Christ, a brilliant theologian, a gifted scholar, an able (and persistent!) translator, and a believer in the ability (and responsibility) of people to read the bible for themselves. This man Luther did set up a church, and his efforts innovated some of the modern worship practices we in the modern church take for granted: the hymnbook, for example.
When Luther died, the group of Christians that held and followed his interpretations of the scriptures became known as the Lutherans, and that's what they've come to call themselves in the current era.
Do you know that some Lutheran churches keep the name of Martin Luther on their church and not the name of Jesus Christ, the man Luther led them to follow? That's simply absurd! It's exactly what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 3--it's what happened to the church within the first generation of its existence!
Do you think that a church set up by Jesus Himself would have been any different?
Consider Jesus' answer to Pilate in John 18:36. "My kingdom is not of this world," He says. What does that mean?

Jesus from Nazareth, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah, came bearing truth from God above, Who sent Him and Who claimed Him as His own Son, Who Jesus Himself claimed to be. (If you doubt that He claimed to be the son of God, read John 7-10: http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=John+7-10&version1=31 and decide for yourself.) He appointed men to share in His message, and to bear it to the ends of the earth. He instituted a rite of communion, by which they might remember His life and His death, (Matt 26:17-29) and He sanctified and commissioned a rite of cleansing by which men could enter into the fellowship of His brethren. (Matthew 3:15, 28:19) Neither of these rites was new, I might point out--both were Jewish rites that had existed long before Jesus partook in either. He simply took them and tailored them to His own purposes.
He left church-building to the frailty and faithfulness of mortals.

If Jesus trusted in the faithfulness of mortal men, is it not right for us to do the same? We get so hateful over our own interpretations of the scriptures when they don't agree with someone else's! We lament the atrocities that were carried out in God's name during the Crusades, and then we carry out our own wars of defamation against our own brothers and call it the word of God...
Such things should not be.

Look at Hebrews 2:1-4. The writer of Hebrews says, "We must pay especial attention to the things we have heard, lest we pass them by." (what I've translated 'pass them by' is pararreo or, spelled alternately, pararrhueo in the Greek, Strong's 3901, a hapax legomena peculiar to this passage. You can look it up in any Greek lexicon or here: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3901&version=kjv.) He goes on: "For if the word that angels spoke became steadfast, and every trangsression and disobedience received a just payment, how shall we escape, neglecting such a great salvation; which, at the beginning having been spoken by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those that heard, these things of God together bearing witness: signs, and wonders, and various miracles, distributed by the Holy Spirit according to His will." (verse 4 is a little tough to translate because there's a participle but no verb. Check a text study and you might find a better analysis of this verse.)

The authority of God is proclaimed with power, in powerful signs and miracles. It's this power that God uses to prove the words of prophets and angels. The Word we're to heed was proclaimed with signs and wonders to prove it as the acceptable word of God; and, I will submit to you, still has such miraculous power today.
Read the bible for yourself! Does it not have the miraculous power, though it is but words on a page--and words thousands of years old at that!--to change your life? If it doesn't, then don't believe it!
The truly wonderful thing about our God is that He is, above all, a God of proof. He doesn't expect you to believe anything that He's not willing to prove to you. And why should He? He made you to be the kind of person that demanded proof for a thing!

At any rate. If a man claims to know the teachings of God but despises you for any reason, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 13) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but has an arrogant manner towards you, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 2, 4) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but wants your money, don't pay him heed. (I Timothy 6) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but lives a life of deceit, hatred, jealousy, promiscuity, selfish ambition, or drunkenness, don't pay him heed. (Galatians 5:16-26)
The same applies for churches.

Read the bible. Pay attention to it. Think about it and strive to apply it to your life. This is the command we have from the Lord: that we love Him, and do His will--and that will is contained in the bible. It's a testimony of love and hope and joy and assurance, and it has the power from God to make your life better, and the lives of those you love. It's not a testament to hatred or fear or damnation, and it won't take away the fun in your life. It teaches you to love knowledge and to study the world around you, to love the world you're in and to protect it from harm, to love the people around you and to forgive them and tolerate their shortcomings and to genuinely strive to make their lives better.
It's a message from the Transcendant One, the Highest Life Form, the Giver of Wisdom, the Perfect Being, the Impetus of Creation, on how to live your life and mine in harmony with your psyche and with the kosmos.
And it's there for us. All we have to do is read it and pay attention.
As the writer of Hebrews says, what help can there be for us if we pass up such a huge opportunity for salvation?

Above all else, praise to God and thanks for the blessings of the day. May He continue to be gracious to us and to show us mercy in His eternal lovingkindness and richly bestowed favor. May He bless all those today that love life and truth, and may He fulfill their desires within His wise and loving will to their good and to His glory.
May His name be praised forever and ever in the power of the Son and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and throughout creation.

*A disclaimer -- I don't have any affiliation with Crosswalk.com or Bible.com, and my links to them do not infer any kind of connection, legal or otherwise. I offer them to you as they are to me: useful web tools. I thank them for their wonderful service and acknolwedge all their rights and authority and such, and don't mean to contest it or them in any way.
And I don't hold stocks or gain link-based revenue in or from either of the corporations listed above...

Hebrews 1:13-14

2006-11-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

The truth about angels? ...
Do you ever feel like you need a ministering spirit, like you're not entirely there and you can't figure out how to fix it?
I read on a new age site the other day (sorry, don't remember where) that the moon cycle influences our creativity. You feel a lot of creative energy during the phase of the new moon: get new ideas, get a lot of energy to put into those ideas. During the waxing crescent phase you begin to experience hardships and have trouble carrying momentum. In the waning crescent phase, you typically begin to see results from your efforts; and in the new moon phase, you feel quiet and reflective.
If that's true, the moon's waxing me ragged...

Think about Daniel's interviews in light of this verse, though.
Check out the conversation Daniel has in 9:20ff. Gabriel tells him "As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed." Again in Daniel 10:12, a man (that is, a messenger of uncertain identity from heaven) said to him, "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them." These two angels were serving as messengers to Daniel.
I don't know about you, but it's easy for me to think of angels as beings that serve God. I don't think about angels as beings that serve Christians, but that's what the author of Hebrews says: "ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation". (1:14) The author of Hebrews is using it in reference to Jesus' authority; he says, "Wouldn't it defeat the whole purpose of angels for God to say to one of them, 'Sit at My right hand and I'll subdue your enemies for you'? Jesus can't be an angel, because all angels were sent to serve the saints, not to sit at God's right hand."
But that means that angels are made to serve men that are saved, as men were made to worship and honor God. It's not to say that the only face of an angel's life is serving mankind, any more than the only aspect of humanity is worship--there's a lot more to it than that. That's just the underlying purpose, the core around which everything else is built.

Sometimes I pray for help, when I feel that I don't have the strength to carry on. If an angel is a spirit that ministers to the saved, then maybe it's an angel that God sends me in response to my prayer, just as He sent them to Daniel...

But if angels have the ability to impart strength as one did to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, (Lk. 22:43) then do fallen angels have the ability to weaken it? In Daniel 10, the messenger spoke of the prince of Persia that resisted him and kept him from coming to see Daniel, and that the prince Michael came to assist him.
If an angel's given purpose is to serve and minster to the saved, then would it not be the intention of a fallen angel to hinder and persecute the saved?
They persecuted men physically in the time of Jesus: taking over their bodies, driving them mad, throwing them into spasms and into fires and all kinds of danger. That seems to have stopped, but has their mission changed?
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet, I.v) Be watchful, be mindful. Don't be afraid to ask help from the Lord, for He gives freely from the riches of eternity. He may allow His helpers to be detained, but He won't let them be defeated; He will save you! Bear patiently your sorrows and troubles, and He will reward you for your faithfulness.
We have more allies working for us than sometimes we think or feel; so don't become discouraged! As Elisha reassured his servant, the number of those with us are more than those who are with them. (II Kings 6:16) Or at least, the greater number--for God is the greater number, is He not?
Later in Hebrews, the author talks about the 'great cloud of witnesses' that surrounds us. (12:1) Even when I'm alone at night, I'm not really alone. Even when I'm standing alone against the wrong, I'm not alone. And even when I'm facing persecution and nobody seems to be there for me, I'm not alone.
Let God minister to you. Think of the angels He sends to protect you, to uphold you. Think of the ones that went before you, who want you to succeed in your life. Think of Jesus, who gave up being with God because He wanted a relationship with you. Think of God.
Don't let your troubles overcome you. Put your hope in God, and He will see you through.

Hebrews 1:10-12

2006-11-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in a public restroom and saw a Gay-Lesbian edition of the Yellow Pages for Austin; apparently, the publication was in its third edition. There were letters in the front from the mayor, several directors of something or other and other public-service types.
It was interesting, maybe enlightening. Maybe a little anticlimactic. The ads looked the same as ads in the standard yellow pages. The companies looked the same--there were a few I recognized. One ad for a real estate agent announced "Straight answers for gay people." They were cute, upbeat, mainstream. It was all very tasteful, very... normal.

People in the Christian community have demonized homosexuals, I think because it's been socially unacceptable for the past few hundred years. Sometimes our Christian culture acts like the world is turning into a depraved and crooked generation... Sometimes we seem to think that the pagans are at our doorstop, invading our culture and threatening our values on our home turf.
It's just not true.
Homosexuals were around before Christians. Pagans dominated the culture long before Christianity came on the scene. Child sacrifice and temple orgies were cultural staples long before the Cross was built or even dreamt of.
In short, I mean to say, it's a pagan world we're living in.
We're the invaders. For a Christian to treat a homosexual like he's an outsider, like he's a freak or like he doesn't belong, is like a tourist going into a local establishment and telling the owner that he should just pack up and go home because nobody wants him there. Not only is it insane, it's laughable.
When did we ever get the notion that it was our world to judge people in? When did we ever get the feeling that we had the right to say who belongs in this world and who doesn't?

We proclaim that the Bible is pertinent to all generations, and it's true. We say that God doesn't change or fade away, and that's also true. But a lot of churches are in danger of becoming irrelevant, meaningless in a society that's changed in ways they refuse to accept.
We can't sit in our holes and lament that the world is turning against Christianity; the world was never for Christianity. Society took on the guise of Christian values for a time to lull us into complacence and into pride over our achievements, to give us the feeling that we had accomplished a cultural revolution that the people of God before us could not.
Now that we see society turning against us openly, are we going to sit and weep for our lost utopia? But we should realize that a utopia within our current frame of refence is an illusion. It didn't materialize for the communists, and it won't materialize for Christians, either.
Paul and his fellow messengers brought the Bible into a world that didn't know the true God. God blessed and prospered the church, even when the whole world was trying to kill it and to stamp it out with lions and spears.
God has not changed. His power has not changed, and God is not losing His grasp on this world. If this world is revealed to us more now as a crooked and depraved generation than perhaps it was ten years ago, then we're only seeing the same truth as our Master, some two thousand years ago.
The nature of the world has not changed. Its intentions toward the word of God and His people are the same now as they were at the gates of Jericho, the same as they were in the destruction of the temple, the same as they were in the valley of Megiddo. If we see its intention the more clearly, then we should not take it as a bad thing; disillusionment is not a bad thing--it is only an opportunity to recognize the truth. The instructions of Jesus, even two thousand years later, are still the same today as they were then.

We must not judge the people of this world. We must love the people of this world. We must accept the people of this world, sinful as they are--just as God accepted us in our depravity. We must show the people of this world the love of a God Who does accept them as they are, Who died for them as they are, Who offers to give them His own righteousness now, as they are.

This is the example our Master has set for us.

Hebrews 1:7-9

2006-11-02T05:25:00.000-08:00

For the love of righteousness and the hatred of wickedness the Son deserved to be given worth above his companions.
Do I love righteousness? Do I hate sin?
It's easy to love sin, isn't it? Sin is like a cheap friend that's fun to be around but leaves you with the bill. He makes you popular, gets you high, gives you all kinds of fun--but after the ride, you're stuck alone with a bill you'd rather not pay.

Still, I find myself seduced by it.

May the Holy Spirit's work in my heart be not stunted by my hardness of heart. May God have his way in my will!
Wretched man that I am, who shall save me from this body of death? I thank the Lord Jesus Christ!

Hebrews 1:5-6

2006-11-01T05:46:00.000-08:00

Jesus is more worthy than the angels because of His birth, because of the life He led.
God made the angels to worship Him. Jesus is the first, best glory of all creation, just as Adam was the centerpiece of seven days of creating. He became flesh and came down and dwelt among men (the greek word in verse 6 for 'world' is oikoumene, which means the inhabited world or, sometimes, the Roman Empire. See Luke 2:1, 4:5, Acts 17:6, 19:7, Romans 10:18.) and we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
Jesus' birth was according to the will of God because of one act of faith by the humble Mary: "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be unto me as thou hast said!" (Luke 1:38) and the work of the Holy Spirit. You know, it seems funny at first that God should entrust one of the most important events in the history of creation to a young girl.
Gabriel comes to her, an angel of light, who reduced Daniel to a quivering puddle by his very appearance, and it's the angel's greeting that troubles Mary. She is remarkable, without doubt. And the faith she shows is immense: this thing the angel proposes, beyond being completely incomprehensible, will almost certainly get her stoned and will certainly end her chances with her betrothed. Gabriel is proposing a completely different life than the one she had planned, just as God had to Abraham of Haran so many centuries ago. (Genesis 12) And given this choice, she says, "I'll do whatever God asks." From that humble obedience, God brought forth the best miracle of them all.
Jesus wants to work in my life, just as surely as God did in Mary's--it's why He created me. (Ephesians 2:10) What chances does He give me to say, "Let it be just as You say"? How in my life do I need to follow My Lord's words: "Not my will, but Thine be done." May I be so discerning! Far too easy it seems to simply plow through life, working my own choices, making my own decisions, taking accountability for my own actions--when isn't that Christ's job? If He is my Lord and my Captain, then how often must I accept His leadership in my life, both to choose the right way and to take care of my mistakes. He guides me, He leads me, He disciplines me, He loves me--but do I let Him control me? Do I let Him master me? Do I let Him shepherd me? Do I let Him atone for me? Do I let Him cover my sins?
He does... and He must.

I want to see the angel in my life today, that choice God presents to me: trust Him, or not. Do His works, or not. I want to be Mary today: faithful, humble, true. I want to be like that.
With the strength of Christ in my life, I can.

Hebrews 1:1-4

2006-10-31T04:35:00.000-08:00

Imagine the angels in heaven as the wonderful plan of God began to dawn upon them, there at the empty tomb: the Commander of the Armies of the Lord, the Prince of Peace, had come down to earth as a human child, that noble soul that had created all things, that upheld all things by His word, that showed them what it meant to be God, was risen and for His proven faithfulness (faithfulness that the angels had seen displayed since the beginning, but that now had been proved to all creation) had received that blessed Name, the Name above all others, that He might receive as His inheritance (and not as some second-hand servant, but as a rightful heir and as the Child of promise) all of creation, which He made. Imagine creation as the holy wisdom of God was made manifest once again, and this time in radiance reborn, the radiance of the Father walking the earth yet again.
This was a thing new in creation. The Father had given to the fathers the prophets, men that saw the will of God and spoke it and lived it--but not the whole will, and not perfectly, for the prophets were simply good men. But the Christ, this man Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit and begotten of the Father, this Servant was more than simply a good man: He was the inkstamp-duplicate of the Father and the perfect representative of the Father's will, come to stamp men with the likeness of Holy God. This was the Son.
And just as through Jesus God made the world, through Jesus He purified it and gave it the gift of righteousness. Jesus Christ is the catalyst for this world: He sparked the big bang that was creation, and He is able to spark the same earth-shaking, world-making power of creation and recreation in my own life.
It's no wonder we're to worship Him, and to serve Him, and to work His will in our lives. That He should care is perhaps the greatest miracle of them all.

A Beginning?

2006-10-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm great at coming up with good things to do but lousy at finishing them.

I want to pray every day and to read my bible and ponder it every day. I really do!
That's what I hope to accomplish here.

Help me, my precious Lord. I need You now and always.