Daniel 12:3

Daniel 12:3 is a verse that has come up a couple of times in the past week, and I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence, so I will attempt to elaborate on that verse today. First of all, that is part of a prophecy that was given to Daniel. The prophesy itself appears to be an end-times prophecy, but that particular verse would seem to be timeless: I do not believe that those words are just for the end-times.

It starts out talking about “the wise.” Clearly Daniel was considered to be wise, although I suspect that he would have denied that he was, pointing out that whatever wisdom seemed to come from him actually came from God. I would submit that true wisdom is simply allowing the Holy One to flow through you, and any attempt to take credit for such things would interfere with that process. In James 1, we are told that if we lack wisdom, then we should ask God for it, and that He gives liberally. James goes on to warn that we need to ask in faith believing, and that if we don’t fully believe, then we will not receive. Of course, if we ask for wisdom in order to benefit ourselves, rather than the Kingdom, we still won’t get it.

It goes on to say that the wise shall shine as the firmament of Heaven. In Matthew 5, Jesus commanded us to shine. In order for us to shine, do we have to be wise? Perhaps not, but Jesus also commanded us to be wise, anyway. In Matthew 10:16, Jesus told us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. That’s an interesting instruction, in and of itself. How wise are serpents? Well, if you stop to consider that serpents are cold-blooded creatures who can normally find sources of warmth when it is cold, and they generally are able to sneak up on their pray when they are hungry, I’d say that they are as wise as they need to be. Of course, if we are talking about two-legged serpents, they also are good at finding sources of warmth, because they are cold-blooded creatures, they are generally good at sneaking up behind people, (or blatantly walking up pretending to be friendly) and stabbing them in the back, and are clever enough to push their own agenda, and to get what they want by whatever means is available. There is a certain wisdom there, just not the “good kind” of wisdom that we’re used to. The point is, that Jesus wants us to be as clever and as subtle as we need to be to spread the gospel, but not to use that cleverness to hurt anyone (not even people that we perceive to be enemies of the gospel). Notice again that in Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to let our light shine, that others would see our good works, and glorify our Father… I mentioned earlier that God isn’t going to give us wisdom for us to fulfill our own selfish desires. What we do, we should do for the furtherance of the gospel, and not for ourselves. Whatever we do, we should be able to do so that people would be aware of God in us, and so that they can see how much God loves them.

The passage in Daniel also talks about turning many to righteousness. Remember that we are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature. Somewhere along the line, the term creature has taken a negative connotation (I think Mary Shelley is to blame for that), but a creature is simply a created being; we are all created beings. It was pointed out to me recently that, in this particular context, the term creature doesn’t necessarily include cats and dogs, although you can practice preaching to them if you want to. I would suggest that cats make better practice than dogs, at least your own dog. Let’s face it, if you tell your own dog that baking powder mixed with Sprite makes decent shaving cream, he will look at you as if to say, “Why that’s brilliant! Thank you so much for telling me! I never would have thought of that, but now I know exactly what to do the next time I run out of shaving cream!” Very few people will react anywhere near that enthusiastically when you tell them about Jesus. I believe that cats would give a better approximation of the sort of reaction that you can expect from most people.

Making a Name for Yourself

There are a lot of people in the Bible whose names aren’t even mentioned. Paul’s nephew helped keep Paul alive once, when he overheard some zealots taking a vow not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul; not realizing that Paul’s nephew could hear their plan. Paul got away clean; I wonder if the zealots maintained their vow?
There was a widow woman that Elijah dealt with; she had a pot of oil that didn’t fail, all because she was faithful to God.
Philip had four daughters that were prophetesses, but we are not given their names.
There was a woman that was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment. That’s an interesting story, in and of itself. She managed to sneak up, in the crowd, and touch just the edge of his robe. He stopped everything, and asked the question, “Who touched me?” The disciples didn’t know what to think of that. “Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?” But Jesus was aware that someone had received a healing. He didn’t mind that she had gotten healed, of course, but He wanted her to make a public profession of faith. If you want to sneak in to get a blessing that’s fine, but you’d better tell people what God did for you…
There was a man who had died, and his friends were on their way to bury him, when they were attacked by the Moabites. In their haste, they just threw the corpse into the open sepulcher of Elisha. As soon as his body touched Elisha’s bones, he revived, and went chasing after his friends (which probably gave them extra incentive to run).
The man that we know as the rich young ruler was never named; just as well, I guess, since he ended up walking away from Jesus…
The boy who gave the disciples the two fishes and the five loaves of bread that Jesus used to feed the five thousand, is not named.
The blind man that Jesus healed in John chapter 9 is not named. That’s an interesting story, in and of itself. This man was born blind, and the disciples wondered about that, because the cultural superstition of the time was that blindness was punishment for sin. How could this man have sinned before he was born? Was he being visited by his parents’ sin? Jesus told them that this man was born blind specifically that God might be glorified, then he made some clay, and put it on the man’s eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. So this guy goes to the pool that Jesus specified. Now, I don’t know how many pools there were in the area; Siloam may have been the nearest one anyway, so it would be no surprise that he went to that one, but it may also have been that there were several other pools closer, but he decided to do what Jesus told him to do, even if it wasn’t convenient (if I was trusting someone to give me my sight, I think I’d have done exactly what I was told to do). After he washed the clay off, he received his sight. Eventually, someone led him to the Pharisees, who, of course, didn’t want to believe that Jesus had opened the blind man’s eyes. Of course, the man couldn’t have picked Jesus out of lineup; he had never seen Him. The Pharisees called in the man’s parents. Is this your son? Was he born blind? How does he see now? The parents verified that he was their son, and that he was born blind, but refused to say anything about Jesus (the Pharisees were putting people out of the synagogue for confessing Christ). So they came back to the man that had been blind, and gave him the third degree again. Finally, they told him to give God the praise, because they didn’t know who this Jesus was, not realizing that he was giving God the praise. It ended up that the formerly blind man told them that if Jesus were not of God, He wouldn’t be able to do anything, and they put him out of the synagogue.
The point is that, it’s not about becoming famous. Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount that we should let our light shine, that men may see our good works, and glorify our Father, which is in Heaven. Not that any of us are so great, but that God is great, and if we show His good works to those around us, they should come to know Him. If you get your name in the papers, that’s fine, but be careful that God gets the glory. The Pharisees at least had that much right.

Blessing God

What does it mean to bless God? That’s an interesting question, and I’m not entirely sure that I have a good answer, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Let me start with the Scripture that says, “…the less is blessed of the better.” Now, does that mean that one has to be greater than God in order to bless God? To be honest, I don’t think so, but, certainly, it is a common thing for us to be blessed by God, for us to bless God is considerably less common, and only possible because of His greatness, not ours. David wrote several times about blessing God: In Psalms 16:7 he said he would bless the Lord, and also in Psalms 26:12, more famously in Psalms 34:1. David was a man after God’s own heart; if he believed that he could bless God, then who am I to argue?
It does seem to me that to bless God would mean to go above and beyond the call of duty. In Luke 17:10, Jesus said that when we have done all that we were commanded to do, then we can say that we are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. I don’t know too many people that have done all that has been commanded, much less go above and beyond. Romans 3:23 says that all have come short. Further, in Romans 12:1, we are told to present our bodies a living sacrifice, and that to do so is our reasonable service. That sounds like pretty extraordinary service to me, but apparently, that, too, is not enough to bless God.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable about Judgment, and He says that when that day comes, He will separate that sheep from the goats, and He will tell the sheep about what they have done, and why they shall inherit the kingdom (wait, Jesus said that salvation depends on works? That’s another study). But the surprising thing of it is, that the righteous question Him, saying, “When?” It’s surprising in and of itself that the righteous would question Him, but to say, wait a minute, when did we do those things? I can understand that if I’m to be rewarded, I would like to know why I’m being rewarded, and I would like to think that if I don’t deserve it, that I have enough integrity that I would point out the mistake (although, if I’m allowed into Heaven by mistake, I’m pretty sure I would keep quiet about that). My point is this, though, if anybody has a claim to have blessed God, it’s the people represented as sheep in this parable. Yet, when they are told about it, they are surprised. “We blessed you? When?”
I think that makes it clear that the really good things that we do, we do without even thinking about it. It isn’t so much what we do, but how we live. It isn’t the actions that count; it’s the mindset that drives those actions (of course, if the actions aren’t there, then, obviously, the mindset isn’t right, either). If we do something that blesses God, we aren’t going to be aware of it in this life; if we do something that we think blesses God, that’s probably just our own ego, trying to puff us up.

In the final analysis, I think that we shouldn't worry about trying to impress God. If your heart is right with God, that will impress Him, and if it isn't, He can help you change your heart.

Confidential to Lyn: Perhaps the urgency that I sensed in your request on Thursday was strictly in my own mind, but not having heard from you since, I am worried about you. Hopefully God has already worked out whatever it was, but I'm in the dark. Please let me hear from you, even if only to say that you're okay.

God Will Not Share His Glory

I was listening to a song this morning that has a line in it, "You will not share your glory with another." From what I understand, the story behind the song is a little complicated. It was written by a worship leader at a church, after a brief mandated suspension. The pastor felt that the worship team was getting kind of a collective big head, as in, they had a general attitude of 'look what we can do' rather than an attitude of glorifying God. That sort of defeats the purpose of the worship team. Anyway, the pastor talked to them about it, and asked them to take a break from leading worship. During this time, they reflected on their collective attitude, and realized that the pastor was right, and made a commitment to use worship for worship and not for self-promotion. The first several times that I heard the song, I thought that line had to do with the fact that there is no other God but God, but then I heard how the song came about and realized that what they are really saying is that God won't even share His glory with someone making a show of serving Him. You either are serving Him legitimately of a pure heart, giving all honor and glory to Him, or you are serving yourself.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did a good job of explaining this: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Your light, meaning your example, so shine, that men may see your good works, and glorify your Father. Seems kind of backwards, doesn't it? But it isn't. Remember that we can do nothing of ourselves, so if what we are doing is really good works, then God is the one actually doing the work, anyway (I have blogged about this before). In John 12, Jesus says that if we lift Him up, we will draw others to Him--that's what we, as Christians are supposed to be about, anyway.