At All Times? Really?

David, the man after God's own heart.  Listen to him--
Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my utmost being, praise His Holy Name.--Psalm 103:1
I will extol the Lord at all times, His praise will always be on my lips.--Psalm 34:1
At all times?  Really?

The song of God lived in David's heart.  His song and dance before the recovered ark was a single day in a life of songs that started much earlier--when he wandered the sheepfold, way before he ever picked up a sling and five stones.  He could not stop singing.
He sang fear and sorrow as well as victory and joy.  It was all a song.
But when David sang for the pleasure of God's gifts, he may sometimes have sung for the pleasure of his own sin.

David...the singer...and the sinner.  He sang at all times.
Did he praise the Lord as he rose from Bathsheba's bed?
Did he praise Him when he gave the order to put Uriah, her husband, into harm's way so he could hide his betrayal? 
He could have.
At least until Nathan forced him to see himself as God did...not as king, not as singer, but as betrayer and murderer.

For what do we praise God?
Can we see clearly what may be a blessing and what may not?
Do we praise Him for what He gives or what He does?
We only know safety when we thank God not for what He gives, but for who He is.
That is, when we praise His Holy Name.

God loves our praises.  They rise to His ears like a song, like incense.
David lived a habit of praise, and so can we.
But raise your voice in praise, not of circumstances, or for things, but in the presence of His holiness...
He is my God, and I will praise Him.--Exodus 15:2
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!--Deuteronomy 32:2

Getting Burned

The sun rose red this morning.  It crested the horizon in stunning pageantry, shining with glorious promise, and by its gentle light, I welcomed a new day.

But I would not have found the sun so hospitable from a closer vantage point.

The temperature on the surface of the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  It doesn't glow; it explodes in blazes of fierce fire.  Anyone drawing near would burn up before they got within 3 million miles.

God created the heavens and the earth to display Himself.
Our God brings life and warmth, but at the same time burns white-hot and dangerous.

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him and around Him a tempest rages.--Psalm 50:3

We draw near to Him with warning, but cannot resist His call.
I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.--Genesis 17:1

The sun, now warm and nurturing, now a destroying furnace, stands inexorably above all things, every day reflecting its maker.

The closer we get to the sun, the more we are aware of its power.  Like God, it only seems friendly from a long way off.

I cannot know the sun's physical touch, but I can feel its influence.
To approach would mean death, but to witness and experience is glorious.

Boom!

I admit it.  God terrifies me. Yes, He loves us, but we can never forget His holiness--it is dreadful.  The ancient Israelites knew that, if they looked upon God in His glory, they would die.  They were right, and it is still true.

"Woe to me," I cried. "I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."--Isaiah 6:5

The Bible sometimes expresses the wrath with which God shows Himself to human beings as His anger, but God doesn't have emotions the same way we do.  He is constant, unchanging.   But most importantly, He is God, and He responds to sin, when He encounters it, in just one way--destruction.

Jesus, of course, made it possible for us to be cleaned from sin, and therefore come into God's presence, but God made no such cleansing provision for His world.  The earth cannot meet God, not any more.  It, too, now bears sin and God has only one option:

The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire; and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.--2Peter 3:10

The Lord is holy, completely and perfectly, and His holiness strikes down anything or anyone imperfect who falls within His gaze. He does this purposefully, the same way He formed His creation, instant and complete.  

Biblical destruction is the only possible fate for a sinful creation encountering a holy God.  Creation has no option but to quake and fall apart.  It can do nothing else.

Only Jesus, sweet Jesus, stands between a holy God and a sinful creature. His love, and our faith in it, cast out all fear.  The world will fall, but we will not--not if we cling to Jesus.

When to Flex

How much am I supposed to let God do?  How much does He expect me to do?  I'm still trying to figure this out.

I know God is strong, much stronger than me in every way.  I also know, though, that He expects me to do some things on my own.  Which is which?

One part I understand--God is in charge of the impossible.  He will absolutely do what I cannot.  In fact, He has already done this.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.--Romans 5:8

While I wasn't paying attention, God saved me.  He did the hard part, the otherwise impossible part. Having done that, He turned my head to face Him.  Now, together we can do the easier part, the job of changing me.

If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life?--Romans 5:10

In effecting salvation, God gave me life, Spirit, and a promise for the future.  Will He now drop me on my head if I find myself too weak to complete the job?  Of course not.

I must flex my muscle, as far as my strength allows, to accomplish my job in Christ. But what is that job?
Simply put, my job in Him is to be holy. 
Just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.--1Peter 1:15

Can I accomplish holiness because I am strong or smart?  No, but I can do it because Christ's power lives in me.  As I do everything I can, He continues to do the impossible, right beside me, the end already in hand, His glory at my fingertips.

Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.--Ephesians 1:3

Outside the Gate

At the creation of the world, God made our bodies in His own image.  He pronounced them very good and indeed they are, but He made them good, not holy.  Our bodies require sanctification. We look like Him, but we do not bear His perfection.   

We might come eventually to wear His glory, but we must endure the fire to do so.

The High Priest carries the blood of animals to the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp--Hebrews 13:11
.
God told His people to separate the useful parts of a sacrificial animal from the bad; meat, fat, and blood came into the holy parts of the temple for dedication.  They separated hair, and skin, and entrails for burning at a place away from God's presence.

The rest of the bull he must take outside the camp to a place ceremonially clean where the ashes are thrown and burn it on an a wood fire on an ash heap.--Leviticus 4:12

God's people, to honor Him, separated what belonged to God from what did not, then sacrificed the first to Him and burned the rest.

God taught us to subject ourselves to the fire, to spend our own bodies in His service.

In fact, He did this Himself.  He demonstrated how to separate what we must spend from what He will save when He walked away from the temple out of the gate, up the hill, and stepped up onto His cross.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.--Hebrews 13:12  

Our body houses a perfection God placed in it, a perfection He distills until it can stand beside His own.  This is why we endure the separation and intermittent burning away of what He cannot own.  This is why we bear our sufferings patiently because, as we follow His footsteps up the hill, we come to resemble Him.  And, in the process, He makes us beautiful.

Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.--Hebrews 13:13

Looking Both Ways, Part 2

As pleasant as memories can be, God does not want us to look behind. God has prepared for us  another vision. Part 1

We are the temple of the living God..."Therefore come out from them and be separate," says the Lord.  Touch no unclean thing and I shall receive you.--2Corinthinans 6:16-17

On the day I first truly understood my sinfulness before God and was broken by it, He set me apart.  On that day, I walked, or more  correctly crawled or crept, into God's throne room  and I return there daily to be refreshed.  As I approach Him, He infuses me with Himself with the intent of separating me from everything and everyone who is not part of Him. 

He means to make me like Him, the way He originally created all men.
This is what He wants me to see.  He not only offers me healing, he offers me holiness.

I must concentrate wholly on God, seeking to please Him, soaking up moments with Him, listening to Him so that I can obey, repenting for my failures before Him.  Where I am preoccupied with other concerns, past or present, I do not let Him take hold.

All the people in my life are important, but not I cannot focus on them.  They are the platform upon which I demonstrate God.  That is why He brings them.  

As I draw near to God, He shows me His character for the purpose of changing mine to resemble Him in the way He originally created me.  My arena in which to accomplish this are the people and circumstances He ordains and, in the process, as I succeed, He is glorified. 

The Lord God not only fills the rearview mirror with His own dear face.  If we are looking, He fills the windshield, too.

Already Begun, Part 4

So we are no longer carefree youths. God is growing us up.  We have come to understand that His way will not be smooth. The faith we grabbed with such exuberance has brought testing that stripped us bare.The hard news has joined hands with the good news.

  Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?--Job 2:10

This series has been about understanding that we are part of a story already begun, and a story moved forward both in heaven and on earth by the progression of our lives. Part 1  put our ongoing story into perspective in the face of a new calendar year, Part 2 reminded us that Christ borders our initial life with Him with obedience, and Part 3 brought the sometime-unwelcome news that any growth we experience brings hard times, and with them, sufficient grace.

God has a reason for bursting our bubble.  He strips earthly comforts to accomplish our readiness for grace.  As the discipline of trial is a gift from God, so is the grace He gives to see it through.  We cannot gain grace without accepting trial.

But the trouble that purifies has special qualities.  This trouble is not a minor annoyance.  Like fire, it is a flesh-destroying terror.

This terror, this destruction of flesh, is the gift God gives to those who follow Him. 

Grace brings relief by transferring the burden to Christ, but ease is not its purpose.  Life's shattering trials and the grace that accompanies them are the doors through which we must walk to holiness.

Now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.--Romans 6:22


The climax of our part of this world's story nears.

God did not make men to make them happy.  He did not make us for comfort or pleasure. God made men to be like Him.


So, He gives us humanity, then hammers on  His gift until it resembles His own image. The beating leaves us torn and needy, needy enough to give up and accept the grace that relieves and thus the holiness that brings us to the place by the Lord's side for which He created us.

But God is still not done yet.
See Part 5.

Where Are You, God?

In the course of living a life of faith, I often find myself looking for God. He's everywhere, He tells us, but life, in all of its bland ordinariness, doesn't seem a fit place for Him to occupy. Intellectually, I know He's around when I'm doing dishes or driving to work but, in the absence of a burning bush or pillar of fire, I am hard put to recognize His Glory.

In ancient times, God had men build him first a tabernacle, then a temple in which He specified a place for Himself, the Holy of Holies. They watched Him descend into it and take up residence there.

My dwelling place will be with them. I will be their God and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy when my sanctuary is among them forever.--Ezekiel 37:28

Now, the New Testament tells me that my body is God's temple,

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have received from God?--1Corinthians 6:19

but I have a hard time reconciling the precious beauty and careful obedient provision of the first temple with my own vain and unreliable striving. I know without a doubt that I am not a fit temple for God.

But I am looking at this the wrong way. In both cases, it is not the place but the Person to which He draws attention. God is not talking about two things here, but one. The sanctuary of the temple and the temple of the body are the same thing.

And there is more...God once lived in buildings made of hides, then of bricks made by men and now He lives in men themselves but, just as the first building was not made of only one man's home, neither is His dwelling now made in only one man's individual body. As the first temple encompassed the worship of many men, so does it still. Today, God doesn't only dwell in me, He dwells in us. The body He occupies today is the church, not our local go-to-Sunday building, but the church He instituted when He made Peter His rock. The church that includes all men and all countries for all time who believe.

Once, His visible power descended into a communal sanctuary. It still does. The Holy of Holies doesn't exist today only in my heart. Through the church, God makes a public declaration of power. The nations must visibly recognize Him. Every temple God designates exists for only one purpose: to demonstrate His Glory.

We cannot hoard God. He will make Himself known and has designated the places from which He will do it. Both within our hearts and in communal worship, God declares Himself.

Of course life is ordinary. Compared to God, everything is.

Waiting for the Second Cry

Bright pain, muscles involuntarily heaving, a rush of blood and water, and another human being is born. The baby draws first breath and begins his life, most often with a cry. He takes possession of the first of his days , seeing and feeling, moving and exclaiming. He knows his life and will not give it up easily. I have sometimes measured the pace of my own breaths or, in particularly focused times, heard the rush of blood pacing the beats of my own heart. Life is physical, palpable, and so very real.

It also slides inevitably to final conclusion, usually lasting eighty years, more or less--long years of failure and triumph, all belonging to me, all trailing behind like dust I track in on my boots. Somewhere during my years, I found You. This is where I am supposed to say everything changed, but it didn't. Only some things did. I moved over, shared my life with You, and found You beautiful, generous, forgiving, and just. I learned to measure my life, not against other humans, but against Yours.

Yes, You became a man so that I could know what kind of man to be. But You have more:

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, or of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God--John 1:12-13
I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.--John 3:3

I am too concerned with the moments of my life--how I spend them, how even I sacrifice them. You wait for the time when I care less about my life in You and more about Your life in me. You say I am born again, but this birth is not another human birth with a new twist. It does not give me another life. It ordains instead Your life in me.

My new birth does not create a new, holy version of me. My new birth isn't mine at all--it's Yours, taking on my flesh, You becoming part of me completely, the only way Your perfection allows. If I am made holy, it is not because I live in You, but because You live in me. If I cry this time, I cry with wonder.

Thought for today: If you are born again, what exactly has been born in you?

The Dichotomy of the Holy Place: Terror and Rest

Five or six years ago, a local summer camp erected a replica of the tabernacle, the wood and animal skin structure that the Israelites carried around during their forty-year wanderings, erecting and dismantling it at each stopping place. In it, Moses' people sacrificed and worshiped. It served as the center of their communal lives, and God visited them there.

Our local tabernacle replica started out as an attraction, I think. School and tour groups came to it, touching the bells on the priests' robes, handling the instruments of sacrifice, tasting shewbread. The structure stood in a open field away from the camp's main cabins and kitchen and meeting rooms, past a small woods and a stream filled with watercress, into a sun-filled clearing that may once have been a farmer's field. It rose against the distant hills as improbably as one of Frank Lloyd Wright's angular homes against fragrant forests and waterfalls. But after all the school groups got back on their bus, the tabernacle had a hush about it.

Its door faced east, and the sun rose beyond it, drawing all the courtyard structures into morning shadow. Entering in expectant silence, I lingered over the altars and basins, remembering that these places washed with blood most of the time. The hangings of the courtyard closed in. Within their high walls, hills and forest disappeared. The Holy Place, silent and covered with rich brocades and hairy pelts, stood at the far end. Like Moby Dick to Ahab, it beckoned.

Its draped door was heavy and moved aside reluctantly. Inside, the lampstand flickered in deep gloom. Incense burned lazily. Loaves waited for a priest or a hungry David that never came. At its far end hung another curtain. I knew what waited beyond: the Holy of Holies, the Arc, and the place where God met men.

I knew that the Israelites feared this inner chamber. They tied a rope around the priest's ankle when he entered in case God struck him dead when he approached. Even in this make-believe place, I sensed that fear. The Holy of Holies had no light and, although the sun had risen high in the outside sky, no ray of light, no breeze penetrated its thick coverings. No light, no sound, no motion. Like a sensory deprivation chamber, this inner sanctum allowed for only once presence: God's. The cherubim topping the arc bowed to one another in expectation, their wings almost touching in homage to the God who did not come that day. I found that I was relieved. The place itself brought pause enough.

The Israelites' God was awesome and terrible. Their tabernacle, awash with blood outside and with terror inside, drove this home. But God wants me to know him this way:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of His wings.--Psalm 91:1
How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.--Psalm 36:7

God wants to shelter me under the same wings beneath which the Israelites so feared Him. He wants me to approach. He wants to protect me, not slay me, in His tabernacle. He wants to be my refuge. What changed? Why the shift from trepidation and suspicion to reassurance?

Moses' Jews could not approach God, but I can. In fact, He has invited me by name. Their sacrifices did not provide entry. Jesus' sacrifice, however, did. Today, I enter the tabernacle behind Jesus and because He has full access, so do I. God called me, God chose me, God drew me to this, and once there, offers the only true rest known to any man.

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble, He will keep me safe in His dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high on a rock.--Psalm 27:4-5

Shooting in a Strange Land

Sometimes I feel like I live and battle in a foreign land. What I see, what I hear, who I meet--I feel at odds with them as I try to measure myself and everything around me against a holy God. I shouldn't be surprised, though, considering that evil still roams to and fro on the earth. It's a matter of territory, I suppose. Both as a body of believers and as individuals, we give and take territory and, like in any battle, we have to know what we are fighting for.

My biggest problem, as always, is maintaining focus. It's like the bull's eye for which shooters aim when they practice. I have to constantly remember that hitting anything outside the exact center isn't good enough. And I have plenty of examples to remind me.

They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines in the high places. They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.--2Kings 17:32-33

When the Israelites were captured and resettled in Samaria, they missed the target big time. Their priest, their priests, mind you, decided that the best way to accommodate their captors and appease their God at the same time was to adapt to their new environment. They wanted to fit in, to be up to date, to understand the culture. God did not agree.

Do not worship other gods. Do not forget the covenant I have made with you and do not worship other gods. Rather, worship the Lord your God; it is He who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies''2Kings 17:37-39

God insists that I follow Him and Him only without compromise. He doesn't do this because He is a megalomaniac. He does it out of love because He knows that no other way works. Compromise leads to idolatry. Adaptation leads to despair. It happened to the Israelites and every time I give in to what God does not condone, it happens to me.

To this day, they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom He called Israel.--1Kings 17:34

I have to aim for the bull's eye, even when I am captive, even when I seem nerdy, even when I am misunderstood. I have to love my captors in the process, but my aim must remain steady. I may live in a foreign land and have to fight to maintain my territory every day, but I have no real choice. It's not only a matter of winning. It's survival. If I give in to what presses in on every side, I will look smart and agreeable, but will literally be swallowed up so slowly that I won't even notice.

So, today, I fire away, aiming for the middle, and if I miss, at least I have the target clearly in view.