A Personal Gripe

1 Corinthians 1:20-31 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. 26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things– and the things that are not– to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God– that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

I had the esteemed privilege of attending Juan and Andrew’s (and Christa and Brianne and Moo’s) graduation last night. I enjoy graduation ceremonies. Everyone’s so excited, so proud, so full of relief and optimism. And hey, any time you’ve got cow bells, streamers, and a few beach balls, you know you’re in for a good time.

One thing I’ve never been too thrilled about though are those graduation speeches. Aside from the fact I’m sitting on slightly uncomfortable bleachers in 85 degree weather while these people ramble on, I’m actually not a big fan of what they have to say. They’re all the same: look at all the hard work we’ve accomplished over the years, we can do anything, never stop reaching for your personal dreams. I always thought if I became famous enough to be invited to speak at a graduation I would start by saying, “Who cares about your dreams, and by the way, you’re nothing by yourself.” Yeah, I’m bettin’ that would be the last graduation speech I ever did.

But that’s what I’d wanna say. Because the last thing I’d want people to think is that life post-high school is now all about them. How sad and depressing is that? At least I think it is. The greater fact is that our life has so much more meaning then just what we might want to get out of if. We are all created by God, and we’re created for a specific purpose, a specific life now and an incredible future ahead. It’s in God’s plans - not ours - that we’ll finally live up to our fullest potential, to everything we were designed to be! You settle for so much less if your only concern is your own personal goals and dreams.

And then it’s not just your hard work and your perseverance that will get you to the top. If the Bible tries to convince us of anything its that we’re nothing apart from Jesus. We have no real hope, we have no lasting strength or ability, we have no promise. Jesus is the ultimate servant God gave to carry us towards those awesome goals and promises He’s laid in store for us. To say its my own hard work and determination that gets me there is essentially to see I’d be quite fine without Christ.

So shame on you graduation speakers. Shame on you for trying to convince us to settle for second best. The best is not my own dreams and ambitions, and its not attained by my hard work. The best is those things God has laid aside for me, for us as His church and His family, and it’s a gift He gives in love and grace as we enjoy that perfect relationship with Him through His Son Jesus. My best will only be as much when I line it up with God’s best for me.

That’s my gripe for the day.

The Faith of a Canaanite Woman

The following is from Jon…

Matthew 15:21-26
21And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O LORD, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” 23But HE did not answer her a word. And HIS disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24HE answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25But she came and knelt before HIM, saying, ‘Lord, help me.” 26 And HE answered “it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Wow, the first thing that comes to my mind when I read this passage is just wow. How could Jesus say no to this woman!? Why would HE say no to this one woman but say yes to thousands of others who came with the same requests? As Jesus says in verse 24 He was sent here for the people of Israel, the Jews. So this woman, being a Canaanite, was not in the “loop” that Jesus was here for. However, I think there’s something very meaningful in this passage, let’s read on…

Matthew 15:27-28
27She said, “Yes, LORD, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table.” 28Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Mmm, ok wait a minute, now Jesus grants her request, why is this!? Why did HE change his mind? Well, I don’t think Jesus changed his mind at all. HE could tell right away that this woman had faith in HIM, so much faith that she came up asking HIM to heal her daughter who wasn’t even there with them! I believe what this verse is really all about is it’s showing us that even though we have faith that GOD is going to help us out in whatever situations we may be facing in our lives HE, in his infinite wisdom, is still going to test our faith to see how much we really do trust in HIM and how much faith we really have in HIM. So, when hard times come and you think to yourself, “GOD where are you? I’m doing what you want of me, but nothing is going right at all.” Remember that GOD is there with you, but we will be tested in our faith. Not so that we may boast about getting through the hard times, but that we can grow even stronger in our faith that when even harder times come our faith in GOD will be that much stronger so that we will not fall.

Soul CPR

Ezekiel 37:1-14 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet– a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”

Earlier today, I was talking to another pastor who said he’d felt a bit discouraged because he wasn’t seeing more lives changed in his church. It made him think he wasn’t doing a good job. As I was replaying that conversation later in my mind, I started thinking about this passage. Here you got a bunch of dead bones that desperately need some new life breathed into them. And the thing is, there’s only one person who can do that…God! Ezekiel is actually the one who wrote that passage, and can you imagine if, after describing the dead bones, he describes walking over and trying to give mouth to mouth to the rotting corpses? Besides thinking, bet his breath smelled good after that, we’d want to say to him, why in the world would you do that? There’s no point Ezekiel! It don’t matter how much you breath into those skeletons, life ain’t comin’ back anytime soon.

Ahhh, but if now God decides to send His breath (or His Spirit) into them, it’s a whole other story. God, as we well know, can surely bring life back into rotting corpses. Now, this story is just an analogy, or a picture of God restoring life - true life - to the nation and people of Israel. This story comes right after God talks about one day giving new hearts, new spirits, and new lives to the Israelites who’d become in a sense spiritual dead in their rebellion against God (chpt. 36).

So I was thinking about the pastor I spoke with, and then I got to thinking about our upcoming mission trips. And I figured it would be a good thing to remember again that really, we’re not going to the Dominican Republic and Rehoboth to do soul CPR on people. If that’s going happen, it’s going to be God who does it. We are going simply as servants for God’s sake! As Lori mentioned in a devotional a few weeks back, we’re going as messengers, hoping God might be pleased to work through us.

We always need to have the mentality that its not us who will be saving anybody. We won’t be the ones changing lives. We ought never to take credit for whatever spiritual new life we might see. All the credit belongs to God…because He’s the only one who can do it. He’s the only on who can save, who can bring that glorious new life back to into spiritual deadness. So again, what’s our job? Well, for one, its to pray - to pray that God would actually do just that, that He would bring new life to the people we meet. And secondly, its simply to have the hearts of servants, being willing to go wherever God leads, willing to do whatever God wants us to do (to the best of our abilities!) so that His will and His plans might be at work through us…if He so chooses!

A Father’s Delight

Of course the big thing on my mind these days is the arrival of our brand new, 2008, dark-hair edition, baby daughter. Yes, in case you haven’t seen her or the pictures yet, we have this beautiful little girl who, by most people’s evaluation, doesn’t really look like Amy or I or Callie or anyone in the immediate families for that matter. She’s big too! Over eight pounds of healthy, happy goodness.

So I find myself a lot these days just sitting on the couch looking down at this new little girl laying in my lap. And I tell you, it’s happy times. I haven’t even known her for 100 hours yet, but already there’s a deep love and bond forming and there is genuine delight as well, delight in this little girl and the relationship we get to share together.

More than once this weekend I found it pretty cool to think that this is similar to how God delights in His children. I guess its one thing to say God loves us. We hear that all the time. We hear that God is merciful towards us, that He is gracious and faithful with us, that He is quick to help and look out for us. But then I read a passage like this:

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing. - Zephaniah 3:17

God delights in me, he rejoices over me on account of His great love for me! That’s pretty wild to think about - that God actually receives joy and happiness because of His relationship with me. It’s even crazier to think how that’s true despite all my faults and personal unfaithfulness towards Him. His love for His children is pure. I’d like to think that my love for my daughters is pure, but I know that from time to time it will be clouded by my own sin, by my self-centeredness, by my weaknesses. But God’s love isn’t like that. It’s a pure and perfect love. It doesn’t change based on my actions. It doesn’t get stronger or weaker depending on how good I am today. When God says He loves us and that He finds great delight in us, He just does! And that never changes!

I hope the thought of God delighting in you is as neat to think about as it is for me. It’s one of those things I often find hard to believe. “Yeah, yeah sure He does, isn’t that nice.” But then when I find myself delighting in my daughters and start thinking about that verse and how God Himself says it’s true, I’m really thankful to be one of His children. I’m thankful to Him for claiming me as His son, and I’m thankful for Christ being willing to die to secure my spot in the family.

Meeting with God on 422

I’d prefer not to be the only one contributing to these devotionals each day. I’d like to see everyone post a little something on how God has been challenging or encouraging or speaking to them lately. So today’s thoughts come from Lori and her experience with God on 422…yes 422! .

Something really cool happened this morning - a “God thing” or “God moment” as we call them in our family.

I had a doctor appt this morning and had to drive to Collegeville in the heat of the 422 traffic (grrr). I heard it was really backed up so I left in plenty of time. Well, to my surprise, there was NO traffic the whole way to Collegeville at 8:30 in the morning. I always drive with Word FM on in the car, Lord knows I like the positive reinforcement of worship while I drive…haha.

It was a beautiful morning. None like any of us deserve from the Lord. The sun was shining, nice breeze - amazing blue sky. Just amazing colors as I drove. Then it happened. Three amazing back to back to back worship and praise songs - three that we sing a lot. Worshipping as I drove down Rt. 422- just something you don’t to together usually. But it was amazing. God used that time in such a cool way to just kind of rejuvenate me, comfort me, challenge me and just bless me in an amazing way!

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untamable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God.

The dr’s appt wasn’t the best, and I didn’t get the news I wanted. But God is amazing and I praise Him continually for His greatness in loving me through my failures and challenging me daily to be more like Him. Even in the car, I can praise My Savior. How cool is our God!? How unworthy I am to have His love.

Not that this needed added to or anything, but it reminded me of what Jesus said in the book of Matthew (chpt 6):

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

You’re Kidding, Right?

James 1:1-4 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This is kind of a weird passage don’t you think? Ever thank God for the pain and suffering in your life? “Gee God, thank you so much for that miserable day yesterday.” “Thanks for the bad report card, that discouraging news from the doctor, those less-than-encouraging comments from my ‘friend’”. I actually can’t remember the last time I sat down and sincerely thanked God for the things that hurt the most in life. And yet, this is how James starts his whole book! “Consider it pure joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Joy, he says!

Why would he say joy? Why would he write to a bunch of people who are really going through hard times and tell them to consider it joy? The answer for James is that God is intimately involved in the sufferings of His people. The suffering we face isn’t just random and pointless, but its something that God is using to make us into the people He wants us to be. God uses it to build our love and faith in Him. He uses it to build character, endurance, and maturity. He uses it to grab hold of our attention, shape our hearts and forever change our lives.

So yeah, it can hurt. It can be frustrating and downright scary at times. More often than not, its probably the last thing we would ever ask to go through at the time. But the story doesn’t end with the pain and discomfort. It ends with God’s finished work in our lives. So James encourages us to consider it all joy - because God has claimed your life and is at work amidst the struggles.

And never forget, God knows what it means to suffer! He entered this broken world and took on the height of pain and suffering to fix it. He died so that you could know what it means to live free of sin, pain, and suffering. That’s a love we can count on…a love that knows what we’re going through and promises to walk right alongside us!