Friday, July 15, 2011

Trees

Jesus once healed a blind man, but it took Him two tries to get this man to see properly.  The first time the man said he saw men as trees, walking.  The second time he saw clearly.  Now, we know that Jesus didn’t make mistakes, so what exactly was that all about?  There must have been a point to this man saying that he saw men as trees, walking (the other question, of course, is, how did he know what a tree looked like, but, unless he was sighted earlier on in life, I don’t even have a guess), or Jesus wouldn’t have allowed it to happen, and it wouldn’t be in the Bible.
Jesus Himself made a comparison to people as trees another time.  He told His disciples to beware of false prophets, and went on to say that, just as you know what kind of fruit comes from what kind of tree, so, too, you can tell what kind of person you are dealing with by what kind of fruit comes from his or her life.  I’m not saying that as soon as somebody messes up, then you know that they are an evil person; all that really tells you is that the individual in question is human—which, hopefully, was never really in doubt.  As far as that goes, if somebody treats you badly seventy times seven times in one day, but apologizes, and asks your forgiveness, then you should forgive them.  I understand that very few of us (if any) would find that easy to do, but that is the commandment.  By the way, when Jesus told Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, He didn’t mean that the seven-hundred and ninety-first time that someone sins against you, then it’s okay to hold a grudge; I feel very confident that He felt that 790 was just an impossibly high number.
Now, there are lots of kinds of trees mentioned in the Bible.  In Genesis 18:4, Abraham makes reference to a shade tree, which, apparently was a good place to rest.  In Genesis 30:37, Jacob made rods from poplar, hazel, and chestnut trees.  In Exodus 15:25, God showed Moses a tree that could make bitter water taste sweet.  Shortly thereafter, in Exodus 15:27, Moses and the children of Israel came across some palm trees.  In Leviticus 19:23, God told the children of Israel, as they were taking possession of the Promised Land, that they should plant all manner of fruit trees, but then He told them not to eat of those trees for at least three years (I won’t pretend to know what that’s about—maybe fruit trees need time to mature before they bear good fruit?).  In Numbers 24:6, there is a reference to lign aloe trees and cedar trees.  Deuteronomy 6:11 makes reference to olive trees being in the Promised Land.  Psalms 137:2 talks about hanging harps on willow trees.  In Isaiah 6:13, it talks about a teil tree and an oak tree.  Isaiah 44:14 talks about a cypress, an oak, and an ash tree.
The bottom line is that there are lots of kinds of trees, and there are lots of kinds of people.  Romans 12:4-8 talks about the body of Christ, of how we are all members, but we have different offices, and different gifts, among them prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling, and even showing mercy.  1 Corinthians 12:4-31 goes into a lot more detail about the body of Christ, and how the members need each other.  Sometimes we don’t see the value in what someone else brings to the table of Christ, and sometimes we don’t see our own value.  It seems like everybody wants to be the mighty oak tree, and stand strong and resolute, but sometimes there is a need of a weeping willow.  Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us that there is a time to weep, and Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those that weep.  Notice, though, that the passage in Ecclesiastes says that there is a time to weep, and that Romans 12:15
 also tells us to rejoice with them that do rejoice; we shouldn’t spend all of our time crying.  We are people, though, and just as our Lord is not a high priest which cannot be touched the feelings of our infirmities, so, too, we should empathize with those around us, but we should never forget that our joy and our hope is in Jesus Christ the Lord, our Savior.

Friday, April 15, 2011

The Money Changers

There are those who call themselves Christians who seem to be angry all the time.  They fuss and fume about every little thing, whether they have any control over it or not.  Some of them will protest certain things.  I am not necessarily against protests, sometimes that seems to be the only way to get people’s attention, and let them know that you disagree, but sometimes people protest and it seems like they are looking for a way to vent their anger.
Christianity isn’t supposed to be a religion of anger or hatred, it should be about love.  “For God so loved the world…”  “He that loveth not, knoweth not God…”  People sometimes remind me that Jesus got angry in the Temple, and drove out the money changers, and those that sold animals for sacrifice, and that’s true, He did.  It occurs to me, though, that most people aren’t really aware of what their activities were.
By Jewish law, every male was supposed to pay an annual Temple tax of one-half shekel.  Unfortunately, at the time of Jesus’ visit to the Temple, Israel was under Roman occupation.  You may remember that, when asked about paying tribute, Jesus asked whose image was on a penny.  Believe me, you wouldn’t have found Caesar’s image on any Jewish coins; but the Temple tax had to be paid in Jewish currency.  So, when people came to pay their Temple tax, the money changers exchanged their Roman currency for Jewish currency.  Sometimes they had to exchange currency from other countries, as well, because many Jews left Israel to avoid the Roman occupation, but still came to pay their tax and celebrate Passover.  The irony here is that most of what the Temple priests needed, they required Roman currency in order to be able to make the purchase.  So the money changers charged the people a fee to change their Roman or foreign money into half-shekels, but then also charged the priests a fee to change it back, so that the priests could buy from merchants in occupied Jerusalem.
Now, the livestock salesmen (who, I suspect, in many cases, were the same people anyway) were there to sell the necessary animals to people that had not brought their own animals for sacrifice.  Accordingly to Mosaic Law, these animals were supposed to be without blemish.  Sometimes, the animals that people brought for sacrifice didn’t really meet the standard, in which case, these sellers of doves would exchange animals, for a fee, of course.  Sometimes these crafty salesmen would point out spots on an animal being brought in for sacrifice, just so that they could make a little money off of an exchange.  That might not be so bad, except that, many times they would, for example, point out an area of discoloration on one animals hoof, trade it for one that had just as bad a blemish on an ear (while carefully directing the customer’s attention to the hooves of the new animal), and then turn around and trade the one with the ‘bad’ hoof for one with a mark on its neck.  In other words, these guys had learned how to make a living off of their ability to notice flaws in other people’s sacrifices, while at the same time, directing attention away from the flaws of their own sacrifices.  Let’s face it, none of us are perfect, and there are very few animals, appropriate for sacrifice, which appear to be perfect, either.  God does want us to bring our best, however.
Realistically, there are a lot of people today that are good at pointing fingers and placing blame who aren’t really getting much done themselves.  It’s easy to sit back and criticize others, when you aren’t making the effort yourself.  There are also some that are making the effort, but still find time to disparage others anyway.  Now the Bible says that if we see a brother “overtaken in a fault,” that we should approach him with meekness to try to restore him.  Now, if he resists that treatment, somewhere down the road, anger may be called for.  I don’t mean to suggest that if someone in the body of Christ continues to sin and refuses to repent, that you just let him do it, because “I have to be meek.”  The first admonition should be done meekly, though.  That’s talking about someone who has already made their commitment to follow the Lord, though.  Someone outside the church doesn’t need to be harangued about their activities, they need to have the love of Christ shared with them.  If they accept Christ, then they will start living right, but if they don’t want to live for God, then all the lectures in the world will be about as useful trying to teach a pig to sing:  It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
As Christians, we are supposed to follow the leading of our example; notice that He got upset only very rarely, and usually at people that should have known better than to be doing what they were doing.  He did occasionally point out faults, but, again, only those of people that really should have known better, the religious leaders of the day.  So many people today want to call themselves Christians, but instead of acting like Jesus, they act like the people that Jesus was upset with in the Temple.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Why Jesus?

The question for the week is, “Why Christianity? Why not some other religion, or even atheism?”  That’s a good question, really, and I will try to give you a fair, honest, and even compelling answer.
It is not my purpose to criticize other religions, however, I do intend to give a cursory examination of the other main religions.  For starters, the Hindu religion has a pantheon of different gods.  Atheism has no god at all.  There are three basic monotheistic religions:  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 
Now, again, not to knock anybody else’s belief system, but most ancient peoples believed in multiple gods:  The Greeks had Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, etc.; the Romans had Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, etc.; the Norse had Odin, Thor, Loki, etc.  It basically came down to them feeling it necessary to divide up the duties of the divine.  Just as one man was good at hunting, another at fishing, and another at building things, so, too, they felt that there must be different gods with different abilities.  The idea that God is not like man did not occur to them.  Now the Hindus have a least gotten the idea that the gods are not like men (look at their statues and images), but they still have this idea of division of labor.  They just underestimate God.
I’m not going to spend much time on atheism.  Suffice to say that there have been a large number of very improbably coincidences in order for this world to exist and support intelligent life if God hadn’t at least directed the process.
Judaism had a good start, but many Jews are still looking for their Messiah.  If they are right, then he is to come, however, if Christianity is right, then He has already come, and, for the most part, they have rejected Him.
Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet (sent by Allah), but that His teachings have been corrupted, so God had to appoint another prophet, Mohammed, with a fresh set of teachings to set things right.  Interestingly enough, the Koran talks about the virgin birth (Sura 3.45-50).  Doesn’t that at least suggest that Jesus (or Isa) was more than just a prophet?
Now Jesus claimed to be the way (John 14:6).  I’m not surprised that so many people don’t believe Him; there were a lot of people in those days that didn’t believe Him.  Still, the believers that actually knew Him, and spoke with Him, and heard His teachings never recanted.  Some of them were tortured and threatened with death if they didn’t recant, but they didn’t.  Now, granted, they may have had good reason to suspect that the promise of release if they said that Jesus wasn’t really what they had made Him out to be, but still.  It seems to me that if I and my friends made up a story about some fantastic man who did all of these wonderful things, and then we were tortured, and threatened with death if we didn’t admit that we just made the whole thing up, I suspect that I would come clean. 
So, we have this Bible, that at least appears to be an accurate account of the life of Jesus, and He certainly seems to have been a Savior, not just to the Jews, but to all mankind.  So, the question becomes, should we really believe the Bible.  I was just reading that a lot of Islamic scholars claim that the Koran reads the same in every part of the world, that there is only one Koran.  They point to the many different versions of the Bible as proof that it should not be believed.  I would like to point out that there are other Islamic scholars that admit that there are seven to ten different versions of the Koran, and there is at least one that claims that there are twenty.  Now, certainly there are a lot more different versions of the Bible than twenty; there are hundreds.  Part of the reason that the Koran has so many different versions is that Mohammed himself was illiterate—don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean that as a criticism; literacy was not nearly as widespread then as it is now.  In today’s society, if a man is found to be illiterate, the first assumption is that he is probably mentally deficient; that’s frequently a bad assumption, illiterate people have to be pretty smart to get through life without being able to read—they have to memorize an awful lot.  My point is that Mohammed was almost undoubtedly of well over average intelligence, but he couldn’t write down the Koran (or anything else).  The Koran was passed on by oral tradition for many years; people would memorize and recite the Koran.  Eventually it was written down, but not until after Mohammed’s death.  So, changes were unwittingly made.  Also, the written language was less precise then, so when it did get written down, the written words could be interpreted differently by different people.  At the same time, the differences between the different versions are relatively minor.  So why do we have so many different versions of the Bible?  Mostly because there are a lot of people who recognize what an important work it is, and want to make sure that it is translated correctly.  Partially because we have an enemy who would like very much to eradicate any correct version(s) from the face of the earth.  If he can influence people to make minor changes to Scripture, he can gradually water down the message until it no longer means anything.  Of course, God protects His Word, so Satan cannot just make the Bible go away, but if he can publish “versions” that are more to his liking, he can lead many astray.  So why is it that the Bible has so many different versions while other religious writings (the Koran, the writings of Buddha, the Sruti and Smriti, etc.) have only a few?  Because of the relative importance.  Satan is not interested in ‘corrupting’ a book that wasn’t truth when it was written, any more than an artist wouldn’t forge a painting by an unknown artist, or a counterfeiter would create duplicates of confederate currency.
Perhaps the most important thing is that Jesus came to be our sacrifice.  No other religion teaches that their god or gods made a way for their adherents to be cleansed from their sins.  Mohammed did not die for you, in fact, Islam teaches that Mohammed was received up into heaven without dying first.   Buddha did not give his life for you.  Hinduism does not have a savior.  If you think about all the mistakes that you have made in your life, then understand that there is only one redeemer; His name is Jesus.  Why go to anyone else?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Marriage

The topic for this week is marriage.  The first point that I would like to cover is what we, in this country, call bigamy.  There are some, even in this country, who insist that there is nothing wrong, in God’s eyes, with a man having multiple wives.  They point to numerous examples in the Old Testament of men who were considered to be men of God who had more than one wife, and also point out that nowhere in the New Testament is this practice even criticized.  They are right that it was common practice in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament.  At the same time, historically, well before Jesus’ birth, the rabbinical council decreed that marriage should be between one man and one woman.  The fact that is that a lot of time passed between the Old Testament and the New; just because the events were not immortalized in Scripture, doesn’t mean that they didn’t affect what happened in the Gospels.  Think about it:  Nowhere in the Old Testament is there any mention of Pharisees, Sadducees, or Samaritans, and yet, in the Gospels they are written about as though they had been around for years; that only make sense when you understand that they had been around for years.  My point is that Jesus (and the Apostles) never felt the need to teach that bigamy was wrong, it was already commonly accepted as being wrong.
Jesus did talk about divorce.  He said that Moses made allowance for divorce, but that was only because of the hard-heartedness of the people, and that divorce was really not in keeping with God’s laws.  Jesus made it very clear that if two people get divorced, they should either be reconciled to each other, or live their lives singly.  Jesus actually used Adam and Eve as an example of what marriage should be.  Of course, Adam and Eve had the perfect marriage—he was never able to tell her how much better his mother’s cooking was, and she was never able to tell him about the other men she could have married.  They had another advantage, too:  They had no other people interfering with their marriage; they only had to deal with their own family.  If they had a fight, and Eve decided to leave Adam, where would she go?
I have been asked who performed the marriage ceremony for Adam and Eve.  I don’t think that a ceremony is a necessary part of becoming husband and wife.  In modern-day society, that’s the way it is generally done, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that it was always done that way, or that it should have been done that way.  Modern law requires a marriage certificate, issued by the state, and some form of ceremony, even if it is just a justice of the peace making sure that both parties are amenable to the marriage.  The Bible tells us to obey every ordinance of man, so, of course, we get married and perform marriages in a manner consistent with the law; but obviously Adam and Eve were not subject to that law (the legal term is ‘ex post facto’).  So who married Adam and Eve? Well, God pronounced them man and wife; I don’t think you’re going to find a higher authority or a more able minister than that.
One of the problems that we run into in modern society is that a lot of young people become, well, seduced into a romantic notion that love conquers all, and if they truly love each other (and, of course, they do, just ask them) then their love will overcome all obstacles, and they will grow old together and they will always be happy.  The truth of the matter is that marriage is a lot of work.  No two people are ever going to agree one-hundred percent on everything all the time, and even if they did, they will eventually get tired of being around someone that never really adds anything to the conversation—sometimes arguing is preferable to lock-step thinking.  The bottom line is, there is no perfect marriage.  There will be misunderstandings, quibbles, arguments, and even fights (hopefully just verbal fights), but if two people are really willing to make their marriage work, they will find solutions to their disagreements. 
The first major fight that I had with my wife, she announced that she was going home to mother.  She called her mother to say what had happened.  After she said her piece, my mother-in-law said hers.  To make a long story short, my wife ended up hanging up the phone and apologizing to me.  Her mother realized that what we were so upset about wasn’t that big of a deal.  It sure seemed like it was to us, at the time.  In retrospect, I don’t even remember what it was we were arguing about.  We were indeed fortunate, and blessed, to have an objective third party to put things into perspective for us.  Too many young couples today don’t confide their problems to a third party, and a great number of pastors are grateful that they don’t.  I understand that pastors don’t really want to hear about conflicts in their congregations, but without a little perspective, many marriages end up in divorce unnecessarily.  If you are having problems with your marriage, talk to your pastor (or mother-in-law, or some other third party), and if your pastor doesn’t want to provide counseling, then find a new pastor.  Oh, and don’t get counseling from a friend—the wife’s girlfriends almost always side with the wife, the husband’s guy friends almost always side with the husband, and other people may have their own reasons for wanting to split the marriage up (for example, a guy that finds the wife attractive (or a woman attracted to the husband) may contrive to get the couple divorced just so that they can get what they want).
So, you may be asking the question, “So, should I get married?”  Well, to be perfectly honest, maybe you shouldn’t.  Apostle Paul wrote at some length in 1 Corinthians 7 about how someone whose main goal is to spread the Gospel is going to be much more effective at it if all of his (or her) attention is concentrated on spreading the Gospel.  Someone who has a family to support or look after has, at best, divided attention.  He also, though, says that, “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband.”  (Did you notice that the terms were singular there, by the way—suggesting that he proposes that a marriage be one man and one woman?)  The thing is, and recent events should make clear, some people can handle celibacy, as long as they have a clear purpose and are dedicated to doing the work that God has for them.  Some people cannot.  Frequently, people who, at one point in their lives, felt strongly that they should live out their lives as a single person, and take a vow to that effect, but later find out that they aren’t as strong as they thought they were.  If they continue to try to live that vow, they suffer for it, and, perhaps more importantly, people around them suffer for it.  The Bible tells us that it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay, but, sometimes it’s better just to accept the fact that the vow was too ambitious, and take the hit for breaking the vow, but only as a last resort.  The bottom line is, you need to prayerfully make a decision, can you serve God as a single person, or do you need an helpmeet?  God can help you find the answer to that question.  If you legitimately need someone to help you fulfill your calling, then God will give you one; if you don’t, then you will be more effective without one.  If you try to be something that you’re not, though, you are only frustrating the grace of God.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The topic of the week is homosexuality.  I imagine that we are all aware that there are people from a “church” in Kansas that have been picketing funerals, spewing hate and discontent, claiming that the death of U.S. soldiers and Marines is the direct result of God’s wrath at the U.S. for its leniency towards homosexuality.  They, of course, refer to Scriptures that describe homosexuality as an abomination.  There are other Scriptures that refer to eating shellfish as abomination.  Somehow, neither of these abominations made it into the top ten list of sins, however.  Now, a case could be made that the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament were done away with in Acts 10, when God told Peter, “What I have cleansed, call not thou unclean.”  To be honest, though, in context, it seems pretty clear that, although Peter’s vision involved food, it really wasn’t food that God was talking about.  I certainly hope that we are not mistaken in thinking that we are no longer subject to the dietary restrictions of Old Testament Law, since we are not under the Law, but under Grace, because I really enjoy a good lobster tail. 
I have never actually heard anyone say this, but some of these people act as though they believe that homosexuality is the worst sin of all.  Jesus said that the first commandment of all was to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength.  He said that the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  If I were the type of person to relegate sins to different levels, that passage would lead me to believe that the worst sin of all is to be an atheist.  For whatever reason, though, we as a society tend to be considerably more tolerant of atheists than of homosexuals.  I am sure that there are atheists that would disagree with me on that, but when was the last time you saw someone picketing a funeral with a sign that said, “God Hates Atheists?”
            John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  I don’t see anything there that discriminates based on sexual orientation.  Unless I am reading that incorrectly, God loves everybody, and made a way for anybody to be saved, no matter what their sin.  In point of fact, James makes a point of mentioning that, in God’s eyes, sin is sin.  It doesn’t really matter what sin you have committed, you need it to be forgiven, and God has made a way for it to be forgiven.
            I also feel that I need to talk a little bit, at least, about the difference between thoughts and actions.  Jesus said that if a man looketh upon a woman to lust after her, he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Of course, we can extrapolate that if a man looks after another man to lust after him, he has committed just as grievous a sin (particularly considering that, in God’s eyes, sin is sin).  At the same time, there is a difference between having a thought, or even an urge, and having lust.  There is a difference between finding someone attractive, and fantasizing about that person.  By the same token, if you feel an urge to do something that you know is wrong, whether it involves a person of the same gender as yourself, or someone who is married to someone else, that urge is not sin.  If you let it become more, then it can become sin, but the urge itself is not sin.
            So, in conclusion, although there are some people that say that God hates gay people, that view is simply not supported by Scripture.  It is true that homosexual acts are sin, but all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.  Those of us who are sinners saved by Grace have no business looking down our noses at people who are really just other sinners.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

What About Church?

The topic for this week is church attendance.  Is it important?  Should I go?  If so, when should I go?  How often should I go?  What’s in it for me?
Well, let’s start with the obvious question, “Is it important?”  After all, if it isn’t important, then the rest of those questions don’t really matter, anyway.  Romans 10:14 asks the question, “How shall they hear without a preacher.  So, evidently, having a preacher (or a pastor) is an important part of the Christian life.  Jeremiah 3:15 tells us that God will give us pastors according to His heart.  There are a number of references in the book of the Acts of the Apostles to the body of believers gathering together:  Acts 2:46, Acts 5:42, Acts 6:1, and Acts 20:7.  Also, Apostle Paul admonished us to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together…”  So, God gives us pastors, from whom we should hear the Word expounded, the early church gathered together often, and we are not supposed to forsake the assembly of ourselves together.  That sounds like a pretty clear “yes” to the question of whether church is important, and whether you should go.
When should you go?  Now, there are some that insist that Saturday is the Sabbath day (not Sunday), so you should attend service on Saturday.  Now, the Bible says, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)  If you want to attend service on Saturday, there’s nothing wrong with that.  If you want to attend service on Sunday morning, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.  There are some that make a lot of noise about it being wrong to worship God on Sunday—I personally have a hard time with the idea that there’s a ‘wrong’ time to worship God—but the only time that I’m aware of in Scripture that it specifies a particular day of the week that the early church worshipped was in Acts 20:7 where it says that they worshipped on the first day of the week (Sunday).  Remember that the Sabbath day is an homage to the seventh day when God rested after creation; so, the Sabbath Day would be Saturday, and the first day of the week would be Sunday.  Now, don’t misunderstand me; I feel certain that the early church held services on other days, also, I just wanted to point out that we know from Scripture that at least once they held service on a Sunday.
How often should you go?  To some extent, that’s up to your pastor.  To a lesser extent, it’s up to you.  Health permitting, you should attend every service you can, unless you are a member of one of those churches that has outgrown its building, and the pastor is officiating multiple services a week in order to be able to minister to everyone in his flock.  In those churches, if every church member tried to attend every service, they would have to turn people away, and it might end up being a lot of the same people each time.  Imagine for a moment that Sister Mary shows up for service an hour early every service to make sure she gets in, but Brother Bob comes at the last possible minute each time and is consistently turned away.  Well, you may say, Brother Bob should get up sooner, and not wait until the last possible minute, and there is some truth to that, but let’s not forget that Bob is evidently one of the weaker Christians and he needs all the help he can get (are we not commanded to bear one another’s burdens?)
What do you get out of it?  That question seems a little mercenary, but, to be honest, it is a fair question.  A lot of people seem to think that church service is your service to God, that it is a requirement that you must fulfill in order to get on with your life (some even think that going to church on Sunday gives them carte blanche to live the rest of the week however they please).  Not so.  In actuality, church service is for you.  It strengthens you, spiritually, it encourages you, and sometimes it even equips you when the pastor teaches you something you didn’t know.  It should be an opportunity for you to celebrate your faith.  And, by the way, your service to God is how you live the rest of the week.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

            The topic for this week is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”   The easy answer is that we have an enemy who has, from the beginning of human existence, tried to trip us up and trick us into forsaking the good gifts that God has for us.  Don’t believe me? Read Genesis 3.  The more complicated answer is that, although God is good, and wants the best for us, we have (with a lot of help) managed to mess this world up pretty badly. 
            What it really comes down to is that we are free moral agents, and we are free to make our own choices.  Sometimes we will make choices that are good for us, and sometimes we will not.  I’m guessing that Adam made a lot of good choices in the Garden of Eden, but he is mostly remembered for the one bad decision he made.  We don’t get into fixes because God puts us into a mess, although sometimes He doesn’t protect us from other people’s bad decisions, even when we think He should.
            Another problem that we run into is that sometimes things happen that seem bad, but really aren’t.  In some instances, good and bad are relative.  Think about Jonah for a minute.  When he was in the belly of the whale, he believed that he was being punished for his transgression, and that he was going to die in that whale (or great fish).  In other words, he believed that God had devised a plan, intended to kill Jonah slowly, that would be worthy of a villain in a bad spy movie.  The Scriptures make it clear that God prepared the ‘great fish’ for Jonah, not to kill him, but to keep him alive, because God wasn’t done with Jonah yet.  In any case, I’m sure that Jonah didn’t think that he was in a good place, but consider that he placed himself in a position that the alternative was certain death by drowning outside of the will of God.
            Elisha once found himself in a situation where Jezebel, Queen of Israel, threatened his life, and he took her very seriously.  He went and hid himself in a cave.  While he was in that cave, he must have felt that things just couldn’t get any worse; he probably felt that God had forsaken him.  That’s speculation on my part, but, it seems to me that he knew that God was greater than Jezebel, and that Jezebel couldn’t kill him without God’s permission, so I have to believe that he was hiding from Jezebel specifically because he believed that God had forsaken him.  Looking back at his situation, we can see that God hadn’t forsaken him, his basic needs were taken care of; in fact, he could have been sleeping safe and sound in his own home if he had simply believed God instead of Jezebel.  Part of me is tempted to call Elisha a coward, but, from everything else I have read about Elisha, he was a much braver man than I am.
            In the Gospel of John there is a story about a man that was born blind.  In those days, people tended to be somewhat superstitious about such things and assumed that if someone was struck blind, it was because God (or, in the Gentiles’ case, the gods), were displeased with this person.  Even Jesus’ disciples were confused: why was this man born blind? was it because of his sin (how could he sin before he was born?) or his parents (but then why didn’t God punish the parents directly?)?  Jesus told them flat out that the blindness was not the result of sin, but an opportunity for God to be glorified.  I can’t help but wonder how he felt, all those years being blind; I can’t believe that he thought his blindness was a good thing.
            Sometimes God lets us get into situations just to show people how we will react.  Remember Job?  He did nothing wrong and yet God allowed him to be tested, not because God doubted Job’s integrity, but just to show off Job’s integrity.  Of course, Job had no idea what was going on, he only knew that he was going through a lot of suffering and torment that he wasn’t accustomed to.  His ‘friends’ assumed that Job’s situation was due to some malevolence on Job’s part, but they ended up getting schooled.
            The bottom line is, if it seems like things are bad and getting worse, and everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong, the situation is dire and bleak and only getting darker, then you really just aren’t seeing the big picture.  God has promised that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  Remember the three Hebrew “children” (I’m not sure that they were children when this happened) who told King Nebuchadnezzar that they were not careful to answer him, that they knew that there God was able to save them, but that, even if He didn’t save them, they were still not going to bow down to the image that the king had made?  They were willing to stand up and do what was right, even if got them killed, because they knew that God had a reward for them after their deaths, IF they remained faithful.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Walking On Water

I had someone recently tell me that they wouldn’t want to be like Peter, because he didn’t have enough faith to be able to walk on the water without Jesus’ help.  I can sort of see that point, but it occurs to me that I would like even less to be like the other eleven who didn’t have enough faith to get out of the boat.  To be perfectly honest, most of the time I have more in common with the other eleven than I do with Peter.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise:  In Isaiah, we are told that our righteousness is as filthy rags.  Any time we try to do anything on our own, we are going to come up short.  The Bible even says that we are not sufficient of ourselves even to think as of ourselves.
Jesus once taught that a servant shouldn’t expect thanks for a job well done; after all, he (or she) is just doing his job.  I suppose that it has become courtesy to thank an employee, or to give some recognition when a worker does well, but, realistically, as a worker, you do what you do in order to earn a paycheck.  The words, “Thank you” may sound nice, but they don’t help pay the bills.  Don’t misunderstand me, I understand that a little appreciation goes a long way towards building up morale, which, in turn, helps people to put more effort into their jobs.  A good manager will thank his/her employees when they do a good job (whereas a poor manager will only criticize), but the worker should understand that the expression of gratitude that really matters is the paycheck.  Jesus went on to say that, when we have done all that has been commanded of us, we should say, “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.”  To be perfectly honest, there are very few days that I feel comfortable saying that I am an unprofitable servant.  Most days I am just one striving to be closer to being unprofitable than to being a liability. 
The Bible says to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  This is hard for human beings to hear, but when one considers the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, it is hard to escape the realization that He asks less from us that what He has done for us, and even now, He continues to make intercession for us because He knows and understands that, in this life, we will never be perfect.  God understands our limits and our human frailties, and He has made a way for us to overcome.  If we ever think that we have done this by our own strength or by our own righteousness, however, then we are essentially just exalting ourselves.  Of course, God understands human ego, also, and will, if we allow Him, make away for us to get past ourselves.
To get back to the reference I started with, Peter may have needed Jesus’ help to walk on the water, but each of us needs Jesus’ help to do anything worthwhile.  None of us are “man enough,” or holy enough, or righteous enough to achieve salvation on our own, much less  impart salvation to someone else; we have enter through the door that Jesus provided.  Peter walked on the water, even for the short time that he was able to do it, by keeping his eyes on Christ.  When he took his eyes off of Christ and started looking at the physical things around him, then he lost his focus, and he began to sink.  When he cried out to Jesus, Jesus reached out and saved him.  Some would have you to believe that this represents the absolute worst of mankind; I am telling you that this represents the absolute best—we just don’t get any better than that.  We do well when we focus on Jesus, when we “keep our eyes on the prize,” as they say, but, ultimately, we allow ourselves to become distracted; when we turn back to Jesus, He saves us from whatever trouble we’ve managed to get ourselves into.  This is humanity at its best.  Strive to do better, but, this is basically who we are.