Seeing Red

I can't get her out of my mind.
I keep thinking about that tender woman in the crowds by the lake at Galilee, bleeding out, slow drop by slow drop.
Weak, pale, outcast.  She crawled through the crowd, propelled by a faith born of desperation.  Desperation.  But it was enough.  She reached out.

Then, unbidden, with the touch of grace and power that He wrapped around Him like a sweet cloak, Jesus stopped her bleeding.
Facing His own passion, His own blood sacrifice, He spared hers.

Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.--Mark 5:34

That's the way it works.  Freedom is purchased by the blood of one for the benefit of another.  So it did that day, and so it does for us. Just as for all the blood shed for freedom through long ages of men, as it flowed from one, it stopped for another. 
The woman did contribute something, however.
She contributed faith.

Today, we remember that much blood has flowed for freedom and still does, but as it does, it causes us to yearn for a day when, like for this woman, another exchange for freedom awaits. The Lord of the universe promises an end to the bleeding.  Rather than life's blood, we long to offer faith alone and be freed from suffering.

His blood flowed once for all, but our blood continues to stain the world.
Someday, we will know freedom from that, too.

Be Careful What You Ask For

Poor Solomon.
God asked him what he wanted and Solomon asked for wisdom.  A good thing.  Very good, everyone seemed to think.  And God gave him piles of it, along with piles of everything else--power, wealth, wives.

It started out all right, like the dead baby incident, when wisdom came in pretty handy for figuring stuff out.

With time, however, wisdom brought Solomon a kind of clarity he didn't particularly like, and he wrote about it in Ecclesiastes.

Meaningless! Meaningless!  Everything is meaningless!--Ecclesiastes 1:2

So this is where wisdom leads?  Apparently, it is.

God's gift of wisdom gave Solomon a clear view of man, much clearer than he liked.  And this is what he saw:

Work achieves nothing lasting  (Ecc 2:11)

Men continually mess up  (Ecc 7:20 and 8:14)

Riches and wisdom make little difference in the end (Ecc 10:6)

God showed Solomon that, even though he was a great man, he was still a man.
This only have I found:  God made man upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.--Ecc 7:29
God showed him that, for all Solomon's wisdom, he was still a sinner.
There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.--Ecc 7:20

Solomon thought his wisdom would help make him a better man.  Instead, it only helped him see mankind's failings more clearly.  In the end, wisdom differed very little from any other possession he'd accumulated.  

God graciously put Solomon in his place, and Solomon left a bit deflated, but finally seeing with a wisdom greater than his own.

In the end, Solomon concluded this:

Live your life, remembering that you sin.

Be happy as you can with what you are given, remembering that it will not last.

Love God.  Obey Him, remembering that only He sees righteousness clearly, and only His perfect wisdom lasts forever.  (Ecc 7:13, 12:13)

Not what Solomon expected, but not so bad after all.

Stop, Already!

God gave us minds to think, but we are so dumb sometimes.  We have always been that way.

The carpenter cuts down cedars...half the wood he burns in the fire...he warms himself and says, "Ah, I am warm;" from the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships.  He prays to it and says, "Save me, you are my god."...No one stops to think.--Isaiah 44:14-19

No one stops to think.
No one stops.

Go, go go.  Round and round.  Motion is work.  Be not a sluggard.  Keep going.  Don't give up doing good.

Good grief.  Stop already.  Think.

We fashion our gods from our own hands.  We fail to see the wooden gods we have made.
He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him.  He cannot save himself or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"--Isaiah 44:20

We hold our gods in our right hand, bowing to them, reverencing how they make us feel: useful, effective, efficient.  It doesn't work that way. What do we call them?
Our job.
Our to-do list.
Our church activities.
Our blog.
Our club.
Our vacation.
Our recreation.
Our quiet time.
Anything.  Absolutely anything, even an immovable and inviolable prayer time, can be turned to serve a purpose that is not God's.

God wants only one thing from us:
Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel...Return to me, for I have redeemed you.--Isaiah 44:21,22

You are my servant.  Return to me.
How can we ignore Him?
Our idols lie dead in our palm but He lives, vibrant and expectant, waiting to share power and glory.
Stop spinning and look up.  How can we say 'No'?

God's Hand--Why Murder is a Sin

I don't easily obey authority.
Admit it.  Neither do you.

I have trouble with people, who I know are just as broken and sinful as I am, telling me what to do. But God says that, if they are in a position of authority over me, I am to do what I am told as long as it does not contradict His Word.  And I don't like it.

I once saw a visual of this that actually helped a lot, however.  It was lineup of sorts:  I face my authority, but Christ stands behind him, quietly, firmly, with unwavering sinlessness.  I might not want to obey the person, but no matter what, I can obey my God. I may see a flesh and blood person, but God stands behind him bearing authority I cannot, do not even want, to debate. 

Now I correctly understand authority.   It resides, all of it, not with a man or woman, but with God.  I obey not because people are right or just, but because God is.

The same logic, God says, applies to how I deal with my enemies, and this is why:
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.--Ephesians 6:12

Just as I look at my authorities and obey because I see God working through them, I, in the same way, look at my enemies and see not my battle with them, but God's battle with evil. I have to remember that the battle is not mine, but God's. 

Men themselves are not evil.  God made them, every one of them.  They are, however, twisted and used by evil.  Through it all, God is fighting the battle to win them back right in front of our eyes.  

I am to engage in that battle, but not against their flesh. I am to battle the evil that controls their flesh.  Murder only kills the flesh.  It does not defeat the enemy.

Pushed into Shape

Life applies constant pressure, but I have a bad habit of ignoring it.
It pushes and I push back.
It takes my head in both hands and turns me in one direction and I look longingly to another.

And all the while, I do not see that the hands that redirect are God's.

I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working at the wheel, but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands, so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.--Jeremiah 18:3-4

God gave me the right to go my own way, but He did not consent to make me comfortable there.  He promises to correct, to amend, to shape me relentlessly.


He, and only He, knows my intended shape, and this is it:
I am supposed to look like Him. 
 
He builds and rebuilds, always to the same model: His own.  He knows I mess myself up and constantly applies the pressure necessary to re-form me.

My God, my Creator, wants me to recover my original design.
Everything that He brings me in the course of living is designed to achieve this.
As long as I wake up every day, I am not finished.
My most important job is not to preach, or teach, or witness, or work.
It is worship Him and thus, to return fully to Him.  Period.

I work not to get a job done, but because God works.
I sacrifice not to achieve an end, but because God sacrificed.
I love not to further a relationship, but because God is love.

Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand...--Jeremiah 18:6
For every living soul belongs to me...--Ezekiel 18:1

Every time I yield to Your touch, I come closer to Your side, O Lord.  The pot you are making bears the marks of Your hands, but when you release it, looks like You.

Arise!

What are we made of?  Blood and bone, of course, but isn't there more?  Carl Sagan thought men made of 'starstuff' and although he was a scientist of sorts, that is hardly a factual explanation.  Still, he wondered what men have always wondered...

What is man that You make so much of him, that You give him so much attention, that You examine him every morning and test him every moment?--Job 7:17-18

What, indeed? 

I know my flesh is fragile, that my life is short, and that I make many mistakes.  Yet, somehow, I know that I matter.  I just can't figure out why.

God, however, tells me not to fret too much about that.

Now we have a poor reflection in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.--1 Corinthians 13:12

He says that He only knows what I look like.  He only knows all of what I am and what I am to become.  And I am a reflection.  A reflection of Him.

He made me and filled me with Himself.  I don't live very long, but I am made of the same substance that is God.  His glory passes through me and washes over me from the inside out.  I am but a breath, but if I am His, I am all His breath--a long, careful exhale, beautiful in power.

Starstuff, indeed.  The star that rises up bright in an otherwise darkened sky, the star full of fire and light.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.--Isaiah 60:1

By the Spirit

Ever try to explain the Holy Spirit to somebody?  How did you do it?  The flames on Pentecost?  The dove at Jesus' baptism?  Those descriptions can sound pretty lame, not even close to what we want to express in the third Person of the Godhead.

By experience and through God's Word, we know that the Holy Spirit is more. Teacher, Promise, Comforter, Enlightener.
But even these fall short.

The Holy Spirit is not just some inclination, some whisper that teaches me, guides me, and helps me to understand.  He is all those things, but more.
The Holy Spirit is God's VERY POWER.

He embodies all of God's strength.
He provides the motive power by which God shapes the world from a creative idea. That's why He seems like wind--He supplies the motion for the work of God.

That's how He completes the Trinity.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Concept, Flesh, Work.
All Holy.

The Spirit gives life.--John 6:63
We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.--1John 4:13
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.--Romans 8:11

The Holy Spirit is the face of God inhabiting the world today.  Moses saw the Father.  Peter and Paul saw Jesus.  We see the Holy Spirit.  His voice speaks and His hand reaches out.  He brings more than a feeling.  Jesus sent Him with intention to fill us and walk with us along the way as Christ once walked with His disciples.  


Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.--Zechariah 4:6