February 28, 2022
Genesis 41:51 “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house”
It’s hard to imagine the suffering Joseph went through from the time he was 17 and sold by his brothers as a slave and afterward when he was put in prison for something he didn’t do. He was ripped away from his home and parents, betrayed by his brothers, humiliated as a slave, falsely accused while he was doing the right thing, and then forgotten in jail. At no time do we read that he was unjust, evil, or living in unbelief yet he suffered. The memories of his past of how he was once his father’s favorite son and wore the special coat of many colors and then the nightmare of horrible events that led him from a place of favor to a pit in Egypt must have played through his mind over and over. There must have been moments when the enemy whispered in his ear that it was a useless thing to trust in God because God had forgotten him. But there came a day when, out of the blue, someone came to get him in prison, telling him Pharoah wanted to see him immediately and in just a matter of hours Joseph went from being an imprisoned slave to the governor of the entire land of Egypt. The ways of God are sometimes strange to our way of thinking and we get caught up in moments and seasons when we think the Lord is being unfair, or that He is punishing us for something when He’s really setting us up for something beyond what we could envision. The twelve- or thirteen years Joseph spent in jail may have seemed like a lifetime while he was there but what happened afterward made it all worthwhile. He was so highly honored he was second in power only to Pharoah and married into part of the royal family. At 30 years old, he was the ruler of Egypt.
Today’s verse tells us when his first son was born, Joseph gave him a Hebrew name, not an Egyptian one signaling he had not forsaken the Lord God of the Hebrews for he attributed his choice to the goodness of God. Suddenly, as he looked at his baby son and felt the joy of his little family, all the memories of the suffering and injustices of his past faded away and all the pain of what he had endured at the hands of his own brothers was replaced by the blessings of his new life. All of us can relate to this in some way, for all of us have been through trials, pain, loss, heartaches, and sufferings when it seemed like God was a million miles away and we felt the weight of the situations bearing on us as if there was no way out. Sometimes it wasn’t our own circumstances but those of other people we love that we endured with them, drawn to them in their time of trouble and feeling the load they were carrying. But like in the story of Joseph, the faithfulness and providence of God, His power, mercy, and grace always and will always prevail on our behalf. Joseph testified to His brothers in Genesis 45, it was not the actions of his brothers that took him to Egypt even though by human reasoning it appeared that way, it was the power of Almighty God, working out His plan and purpose that set it all up and when the pieces of the plan were in place, all the reasons for the trials and afflictions are forgotten by the glory that is revealed. No matter our trial, no matter our predicament, we can have the joy to know that God is working on our behalf and soon we will be able to forget what we went through in the light of where it led us. According to Romans 8:18, whatever suffering we’re going through can’t even be compared to the place of victory it’s leading us. Whenever it seems like the trial and trouble will never end, whenever the enemy comes whispering his lies that God has forsaken you or is being unfair, may the Holy Spirit bring to mind the picture of Joseph, highly favored, surrounded by his wife and precious children and sitting on top of the world as a reminder that God will always be for us, will always work everything for our good, and will always cause us to triumph because He is faithful to us in His great love for us.
February 27, 2022
Psalms 127:3 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD”
There’s no doubt that the family, God’s institution, and the basic building block of all human relationships, has all but become extinct. The mess we have now with multiple broken relationships scarred and wounded people, and the complete reversal of roles and role models, we still try to call families but it’s far from God’s design and intentions. The last few generations have been raised without any idea of what constitutes a balanced, stable, healthy, and loving home and God’s intention for us, that our homes should be a place of refuge, love, and a source of safety and hope has been discarded and scoffed at as outdated, backward thinking puritanism.
People have pushed away and rejected the very thing that brings human happiness and joy, believing they can find their source elsewhere. In the wreckage, children are trapped and abused, unable to understand they are pawns in the enemy’s war to destroy people who are made in the image of God. The weakest and most vulnerable, our children, many of whom are being raised fatherless and motherless, without any knowledge of the Lord, in unsafe environments, and treated as if they are an imposition to us are swept aside until they too become parents and the cycle repeats.
It should make us very angry that those who abuse children and scar them for life are allowed to plea bargain their punishment down to misdemeanors or escape sentence altogether as if the lives of little ones are of less value than the price of a scheming lawyer. In the guise of “freedom of speech”, we turn our heads as children are exploited in photos and videos and used as worthless rags by grown adults who, when caught, are punished less than if they’d cheated on their taxes. Children should be protected by the adults in their lives, and they should be provided with a home where they are loved, honored, and kept safe.
Today’s verse tells us children are a heritage for us from the Lord and it’s wicked to think the wealth of the home is in our possessions, paychecks, and what we amass and ignore the value of our precious children. Almost daily the news carries stories of children that were abandoned, wounded, and worse while the adults in their lives would not protect or defend them, and very often alcohol and drugs are a part of the pattern. Children grow up angry and confused, defiant and depressed and like their parents, they will move from one broken and painful relationship to another depending on the same alcohol and substances to numb their sadness.
The Lord has a better way and restoring the foundations of our homes, providing that safe and loving environment where children can be raised without the anger, abuse, and uncertainty, where they are considered our rich heritage from the Lord. Just as our heavenly Father loves us and has compassion on us, we show this to our children in our example of parenting (and grandparenting). May the Lord help us return to the fundamental truths that He established. Truths that make strong, loving homes, happy confident children, and Christ-like parents. Even with our best efforts, the enemy will always war against the home and war against our children but by God’s grace, following the Lord’s patterns we can overcome for we have His promises and He has shown Himself to be faithful and true.
February 26, 2022
Genesis 33:4 “And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept”
A lot can happen and change in a 20-year span of time as seen in today’s verse. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers born to Isaac and Rebecca and even before they were born, the Bible says in Genesis 25:22, “And the children struggled together within her”. This conflict between these two brothers continued and at their birth, as Esau was being born first, Jacob’s little hand reached out and grabbed Esau by the heel. It reminds us of Proverbs 17:17 “a brother is born for adversity” and their conflict came to a head when Jacob deceived their father, Isaac, and took Esau’s birthright and blessing in Genesis 27. The anger of Esau towards Jacob at that moment is expressed in Genesis 27:41 “And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob”. Fearing for his life, Jacob fled, traveling far away to live with his uncle Laban. For the next twenty years, Jacob and Esau were separated by hundreds of miles and never spoke. But time changes people and in this case, Esau’s heart moved from holding hatred and murder towards Jacob to forgiveness and mercy and in today’s verse, when the two met again after more than two decades, we have a wonderful scene reminiscent of the story of the prodigal son. Jacob was very afraid when he decided to return to his homeland because the last time he saw Esau, Esau was ready to kill him but at their meeting here, Esau hugged him, laid his head on Jacob’s shoulder, kissed him and they both cried. The past was gone, all was forgiven, brothers were reconciled, and their father had lived to see it all.
The word Greek word for “reconcile” in the New Testament, means to have a mutual change, to return to favor, and to bring things together that were separated. In the Hebrew equivalent, the word “shalom” means to make peace. The scriptures say in 2 Corinthians 5:18 “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” and in the following verse, He “hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation”. Not only had Esau been changed, but on the way to meet him, Jacob encountered the Lord face to face and wrestled with Him all night, walking away the next day as a new man with a new name: Israel. Jacob returned to his homeland a different person than when he left as the name change implies. Jacob means trickster, deceiver but the name Israel means, a prince of God. It is not coincidental that when the Bible says we are instruments of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5, that those words are directly preceded by verse 17 which tells us we are new creations. Even though the very natures of Jacob and Esau were different before they were born and afterward their choice of lifestyles and their personalities proved their differences, (some might say they were diametrically opposed), the Lord worked in them to bring about their unity. God works through us to foster reconciliation whenever there is discord and strife, whenever there is division and animosity. We might feel helpless and inadequate at it all but remember the Lord has given to us the word of reconciliation beginning with the message that we all were separated from God but we have been brought back into fellowship with Him and all that was between us has been forgiven and forgotten.
February 25, 2022
John 3:1 “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews”
The diversity among believers is troubling to some because they have an idea that for us all to be one as the scriptures say in places like Romans12:5 “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another”, we have to be cloned copies. The wonderful and amazing thing is that the Lord includes people from all races, all intellects, all ages, different perspectives, and different dispensations. In today’s verse, we’re introduced to Nicodemus, a wealthy, educated, and powerful member of the Jewish society and he was so different from the unrefined, rugged, and uneducated disciples like Peter and John.
The story of Nicodemus in John 3 is one of the greatest in the Bible for it’s where we find verse 16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. This message of hope is one of the first passages people memorize and it has been the drumbeat of innumerable sermons and crusades and is seen on shirts, posters, and vacation Bible school banners.
It’s uncertain what Nicodemus was thinking when he came to Jesus that night, but from the text, we know he had questions that only Christ could answer. He wanted to know who Jesus was, and as the conversation developed, the questions became centered around life, the new birth, and what it means. It’s the kind of questions most people avoid thinking about or else they push them down, far inside themselves, and refuse to consider them until it’s too late and they pass on into eternity unsure and uncertain of their destination.
The Lord’s words opened the door of salvation to Nicodemus and we know from later references in John 19, after the death of Jesus, Nicodemus brought a hundred-pound mixture of myrrh and aloes and he and Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus, a bloody and beaten cadaver, and wrapped it in the spices and linen cloth and buried in Joseph’s tomb. The anointing and preparing of a body for burial was a task usually done by Jewish women and culturally not appropriate as something men should do. But Nicodemus and Joseph, with boldness and humility, cared for the precious body of the Lord Jesus, something even the disciples did not participate in.
The actions of these two add a compassionate and soul-searching dimension to the story that we usually skip over when we think of the Lord dying on the cross and then being placed directly in a borrowed tomb. It also weaves the lives of these men of different social statuses into the mix of those who believe in the Lord and causes us to consider that the ways of God are above ours and that He alone searches and knows the hearts of all people. The dogmatic “our way or hell” controlling views that demand obedience to some set of written or unwritten set of rules work their way into local churches, denominations, and other religious organizations just like in the days of the Pharisees. Yet the call of the Lord is one to freedom, individuality, inclusiveness (within the doctrine of salvation through Christ), and a personal, one-on-one relationship with God. Nicodemus was different from the ordinary disciples and he was certainly different from the leaders of the Jews of his day but he was just as much a believer when his story was told as were the common fishermen who abandoned their nets and followed the Lord.
February 24, 2022
2 Peter 1:9 “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins”
The scripture section that includes today’s verse is about the progression of growth in our Christian life that begins with our initial faith to which is added maturing qualities such as integrity, knowledge, self-control, Christian affection, and capped off with love. This treasure of attributes, along with the assurance that we belong to Christ, comes with the promise given in verse 10 that “if ye do these things, ye shall never fall”. But the lack of these will result in the problem stated in today’s verse: that we will be blinded, unable to see at a distance and forget that we have been forgiven of our old sins. In the natural world, myopia, or nearsightedness, is an eye condition where one can see objects up close but distance vision is blurred and as this relates to our spiritual vision described in the above verse, our view of life will be just in the present, what is temporal, and just of what is around us and of ourselves but our view of the Lord and things eternal will become obscured. The confidence of the saints of the past was their ability to see with spiritual, faith-powered vision as described in Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”. With just the ability to see the here and now, the up-close and earthly will mean we see the elements of the curse, the struggles of this life, the disappointments, and the stranglehold death has on all of creation. What a depressing, hopeless, and stagnated field of vision.
This is the source of the testimonies of so many believers who are disheartened and discouraged by the war this life wages against them. They are trapped, boxed in, and overcome by the very things the Lord has delivered us from but it takes the ability to see past this mess here and fix our eyes on Jesus, on who we are in Him and the hope and joy that lies ahead. When we forget where He brought us from, the guilt and chains of sin from which He delivered us, and when we forget that by His blood we have been completely purged of it all, we will lose sight of the meaning of this life and the reality of our eternal life with our Lord. This is why we are told in verse 5 to give all diligence, to make every effort to add the virtues listed to our initial faith, and does not suggest a passive, disinterested approach to our Christian life and maturity, but one of active, conscientious effort. We are not working to be saved or to keep salvation but as the growth of our natural bodies and the increase of our mental abilities requires the effort of eating and learning, we must attend to the maturing of our spiritual nature. When Jesus said in John 6:35 “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst”, He gives us insight into how to feed our souls with His Word. We look to Him, the author and finisher of our faith. We submit ourselves to Him as the strength of our Life. We walk with Him as our only guide and source of truth. And we look for Him to return because that is our blessed hope and destination. We “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18) and we “grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).
February 23, 2022
Acts 20:24 “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God”
In Acts chapter 19, Paul arrived in Ephesus and many people were converted to Christ. The Bible says those who were involved with the occult brought their books and burned them and the wave of revival frightened the craftsmen of the town who made their living by making and selling silver shrines for the worship of Diana, a pagan goddess. They saw their business in peril as people turned away from idolatry. The result was a riot when the craftsmen stirred up the city against Paul and the Christians. This was a common scene when the early church began to form and both Jews and Gentiles felt threatened and angered when the message of Jesus came to their area. All such turmoil flies in the face of common sense as the town clerk of Ephesus finally said in Acts 9:36-37 “Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess”. The Word of God is powerful and the disciples, just by speaking the Word of God, caused uproars, anger, violence against them, and upheavals in the culture. Just for speaking the Word of God, they were referred to in Acts 17:6 as “These that have turned the world upside down”. The preaching of the gospel with its message of freedom, hope, and allegiance only to God, sometimes causes fears in people who, for some reason, feel threatened by it. The Apostle Paul spoke of these forces against the gospel and him personally in chapter 20 as he began making his way to Jerusalem to go on trial as a troublemaker and he said he wasn’t sure what would become of him but he was ready to finish the ministry and work God had appointed to him.
It’s sad that the phrase “But none of these things move me” has been removed from many modern translations because it embodies the determination and tenacity of these early missionaries in their work for Christ’s kingdom. It is due to their steadfast commitment and courageous faith that they were admonished in Hebrews 10:32-33 “But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used”. Paul said in verse 23, “in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me” yet he declared that neither the uncertainty, the persecution, the suffering, nor the tears and temptations could shake him off the foundation of Jesus and push him away from the course the Lord had purposed for him. It is the encouragement for us in 1Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord”. The call for us is to dig deep to the foundation that has been laid, Christ Jesus, and by the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, build a life anchored only on the finished work of the Lord, fully trusting His Word. After we’ve been tested a while, tried, and the sufficiency and faithfulness of God have been proven, then when perilous circumstances arise, troubles come, uncertainty fills the air, and opposition knocks at our door, we too can say “but none of these things move me”.
February 22, 2022
Romans 16:20 “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen”
The book of Romans concludes in this chapter with a warning in Romans 16:17 “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them”. The enemy is always at work trying to stop or disrupt God’s work and God’s people and one of his favorite and well-used tactics is stirring up division and confusion among Christians. On every level, he plies his devices with couples, families, churches, communities, and on up the social ladder. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14:33 “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” so we know any time there is strife and discord, we are witnessing the work of the devil. He planted the seed of confusion in Eve’s mind with one little word when he changed God’s words “thou shall surely die” to “thou shall not surely die” and he has operated with such subtle strategies throughout human history. Then also, he sometimes wages all-out war against the saints as in times of great persecutions when he provoked people to anger and deadly violence against the church. Millions of believers have suffered and died as martyrs in every age including this present time. But today’s verse gives us the unfailing hope that Satan will soon be crushed under our feet and with the clock of this dispensation ticking towards the coming of our Lord Jesus, we eagerly look for His appearing.
We can see this promise in at least two different lights. The first is that no matter what trial we’re going through and no matter what the devil is bringing against us, God will not allow us to be swallowed up and defeated by our foe. One good example is in Daniel 10 when Daniel was praying and the enemy blocked the answer to his prayers for 21 days but then victory came. We all have seasons of oppression and opposition, the enemy trying to push us back, derail us, or defeat us but the Lord is faithful and He will not allow us to be tested beyond our abilities but stands ready to deliver us. So we take comfort in knowing in our trials and battles, by God’s grace and power we will prevail and the enemy will be defeated. The second light of this promise is that there’s coming a day when Satan will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3), followed by the final judgment when the Lord will command Satan to be cast into the lake of fire as the scriptures say in Revelation 20:10 “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever”. The crushing of Satan began when Jesus defeated him in the wilderness temptation (Mark 1), when Jesus was crucified and resurrected (1 Corinthians 2:8), and finally will be completed when he is cast into the lake of fire as described in the above verse. The seed of this promise was given by the Lord right after the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”. No matter how we look at it, Satan’s days are numbered and soon he will be bruised, crushed under our feet until his power of deception and his influence is destroyed and he is personally put away from all God’s creation for eternity.
February 21, 2022
Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise”
Isaiah 14 tells us how Lucifer came to turn against God, his creator and fell from his place in heaven. Pointedly, the scriptures address the wickedness of his heart in Isaiah 14:13-14 “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High”. His pride, swelling within him can be heard in his words, and his scorn of God and his despite, as a created being, against his place of subjection to the Almighty King of heaven, set the tone of his rant. The pathway of pride, leading to the ruin of Lucifer, is the same for all people and nations who turn away from the Lord, those who harden their hearts against Him and despise His invitation to salvation and a relationship with Him. The dominant personal pronoun in Lucifer’s tirade is “I”, “I”, “I” the focus of his vile ambition and desired execrable self-glory. A universal trait of sin is that it has the power to deceive even to the place where we will abandon all reason, all common sense, and ignore all the red flags and warnings. For example, people know alcohol consumption leads to addiction, destroys their bodies, devastates families, wrecks careers, and the spiral downward from there, can lead to loss of all things yet this sin deceives them into believing drinking is a good, desirable, happy, and safe behavior. This is reinforced by the alcohol-producing companies advertising campaigns and our social norms that paint a rosy, delightful picture of people and their alcohol drinking behaviors. It is the same for all sin, all apostasy against the Lord, all destructive behavior, and the ways that lead to death.
Today’s verse gives us an entirely different aspect and shows us what pleases our God and begins by saying it’s not what we hand over to God as a sort of gift, offering, tithe, or anything to please or appease Him that He desires. After all, what can we give the maker of all things that He needs or would think is unique and valuable enough to be a gift? It’d be like giving a box of Hershey Bars as a birthday gift to the person who owns the Hershey Candy Company. God loves a broken spirit. Not meaning He wants us crushed under the weight of the world, but that he wants our pride, our selfish ambitions, our love for sin, and our determination to have our own way torn away, smashed, and rendered powerless. That is when we can look to Him with expectations that the Lord alone is our source, our strength, our protector, and our Savior. The Hebrew word for broken means shattered so that it is unusable and has as its root, the idea of bursting apart. Closely related in this verse is the broken and contrite heart as opposed to a hardened, stubborn, and unrepentant heart. The word “contrite” means sorrowful, bowed down, humbled. We can puff ourselves up, claim we are doing it because we’re seizing our position as children of God or we can empty ourselves of all we possess and all we desire and long for our Heavenly Father to fill us with His goodness, mercy, and grace. The deceitfulness of sin can convince us we’re just fine and that we do not need anything other than what’s within us but the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:10 “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” and He will help us purge all that is against the will of God and give us the broken spirit and contrite heart that the Lord can use for His glory.
February 20, 2022
Genesis 22:1-2 “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am”
In a previous devotion, we looked at Abraham’s lapses of faith when he fled Canaan in a time of famine and moved to Egypt, lying about his wife in the process. And again, when he feared for his life when he encountered king Abimelech and told the same hoax, saying Sarah was his sister. These accounts and others reveal that our faith is not always perfect and that we are all a work in progress in this flesh. It is comforting to know the Lord is at work in us, performing His will and that He declared in Psalm 138:8 “The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands”. Much ado has been made about Peter’s denial of the Lord but like all believers, as Peter grew in grace and faith, the old habits and tendencies to falter under duress began to change until, as tradition has it, he died a martyr, crucified upside down because he said he was not worthy to die as did the Lord. Today’s verse is from the chapter that presents us with Abraham’s ultimate test of faith in which the Lord tested him, the meaning of the word “tempt: here, as to whether he would disobey God’s command when it came to Isaac, his promised son. By this time in life, Abraham had been through many trials, walked many miles, endured many hardships, and finally seemed to be at a place where all was well. But when the Lord demanded that he take his precious son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice, Abraham was pressed in his faith to show whether or not he would trust the Lord whole-heartedly or waver in his faith and choose to disobey. We know he did not fail and in this final test, as to whether or not his faith in God was supreme, Abraham proved conclusively his faith journey was complete.
The trials or tests of our faith are proving grounds as to where we stand in our confidence in God and His Word. Not only are we being refined but we are able to see where we stand and also others are able to see the substance of our faith. We know the Bible says in Colossians 2:10 “And ye are complete in him” but just like Abraham we are growing, changing, and maturing in our faith and at any given time we can not be judged as being a finished work. Our completeness is already seen in the wisdom and mind of God but as we are living out this life of faith, it’s step by step, trial by trial, and victory by victory and our prayer and hope is that with each passing season we are stronger, more single-eyed, and more persuaded as the scripture says 2 Timothy 1:12 “for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 3:10 that he was “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith”. Abraham did not stumble in the faith after a certain point in his journey and may we too, thank God for the trials and oppositions that come to us for they are the way our faith is being matured and strengthened. God will never abandon us but He is always working, helping, and causing us to stand mature and complete in our Savior Jesus Christ.
February 19, 2022
Genesis 26:34-35 “And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah”
After Esau despised his birthright, he continued to make choices that revealed his profane heart such as in the example in today’s verse when he took not only one but two wives of the idolatrous Hittites. The Hittites were descendants of Noah’s son, Ham, specifically Noah’s great-grandson Heth, son of Canaan. This line was cursed by the Lord because of the sin of Ham against his father and was among the groups of nations that Israel was commanded to destroy when they conquered the promised land. Remember that when Abraham wanted a wife for Isaac, he sent his loyal servant on a journey, 900 miles away, to Abraham’s home country to find a wife as he didn’t want Isaac to take a wife from any of the Canaanite tribes. Note that the scriptures say Esau’s choices in his wives were a “grief of mind” to Isaac and Rebecca so much that Rebecca said when she started thinking about who Jacob would marry in Genesis 27:46, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?”. The daughters of Heth here are another phrasing of the Hittites. Esau, perhaps in an attempt to appease his parents, when he heard Isaac and Rebecca were sending Jacob away to their ancestral homeland to find a suitable wife the Bible records his actions in Genesis 28:8-9 “And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife”. Although he then married a non-Canaanite wife, he still had 2 wives which were of the idolatrous nations. Esau’s actions did not amend what was in his heart for the scripture says of him in Hebrews 12:17 “For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears”.
The Bible says in 1Samuel 15:23 “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry”. There are many, Like Isaac and Rebecca, who are heart-grieved daily for the stubborn, rebellious choices and their consequences made by their children and other family members. Esau, in despising his birthright, proved that he also was contemptuous of the ways of the Lord and a life built on the foundation of faith and good choices that honor God. He showed his dishonor for his family by deliberately choosing to take wives he knew would cause them pain and sorrow. Even though we can argue that Jacob’s actions were a catalyst in it all, God never excuses our sins and actions, allowing us to blame someone else but holds us personally accountable when we willingly disobey. There may be pleasure in sin for a season but when the seed of sin matures and we must reap its harvest, the wages of sin will always be death. God said of Esau in Romans 9:13” As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”. And while the Lord didn’t curse Esau for, in fact, Esau was a blessed man (Genesis 36), the idea here is that when Esau chose to reject the Lord and the ways of God, he was less-loved which is a literal meaning of the word used here for “hated”. Those who repudiate God and disdain His ways, following the path of Esau, should be mindful of the warning of 1 Corinthians 6:9 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?”.
February 18, 2022
Matthew 15:19-20 “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man”
The scribes and Pharisees always laid the finger of blame against the Lord and His disciples over something they were doing or not doing and, in this chapter, they accused the disciples of disobeying the Jewish rules when the disciples ate without ceremoniously washing their hands. In the view of the religious nuts of Jesus’ day, this made the disciples unclean. A famous verse in the Bible, 1 Samuel 16:7, says “the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” and the religious leaders were obsessed with scrutinizing people’s actions and when they didn’t line up with their rules, they would pronounce the people “defiled” and sometimes throw them out of the synagogue. Jesus stood this idea on its head by teaching that people’s sin problem is not what they eat and how they eat it, but the condition of their hearts. When the Levitical Law was given, we read such statements as Deuteronomy 4:29 “But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul” and it is based on the first great commandment and declared by our Lord in Mark 12:30. Jesus continued His rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees by saying they talked a good line about how much they loved God and did a bunch of religious stuff that made it appear they were deeply committed to the Lord when in reality, their hearts were far from God. It was all an exterior show of religion but not genuine worship and love for the Lord.
A real relationship with God begins when we allow the Holy Spirit to address the problem we have within: the sinful, prideful nature of our hearts. The common practice for people is to blame everyone else, excuse away the fallen nature, and duck and dodge the truth about ourselves. We all know people that, in any sticky situation they’re in, can talk a blue streak without ever coming out and saying, “I’m the guilty one here, it’s my fault and I take full responsibility”. We learn early in life how to spin the story, deflect the blame, and shift the attention away but the truth remains that we have a problem within us and it’s the source of all that is wrong and all that defiles us. Bad behaviors happen because they are fueled from within and we can spend a lifetime working to change the behaviors but the Holy Spirit can do the work inside us that will then show up on the outside. It’s true we can and should corral and suppress certain desires and actions and we should be held responsible for them but the driving force, as stated in today’s verses, is the very essence of the flesh and God declared in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” and in Proverbs 28:26 “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool”. May we pray the prayer of David in Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” and may the Lord help us to never think that by just doing the motions of religion we are justified before the Lord.
February 17, 2022
Genesis 25:33-34 “And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright”
What happened in this event between Jacob and Esau is so significant that it is used in Hebrews 12 as a warning. Esau, Issacs and Rebecca’s firstborn son, represented not only the responsibilities and privileges of ordering the succession of the family line in the observance of primogeniture, but as it related to the purpose and plan of God, it was how the promises made to Abraham for his descendants was carried out. This plan is the theme of redemption for the human race and also the blessings promised through the covenant God made with Abraham for the whole world. Somehow or for some reason Esau did not value or appreciate the role of the firstborn in God’s plan and completely rejected it when the scriptures say he “despised his birthright” meaning he thought it worthless and viewed it with contempt. When he tossed aside his birthright in contempt, he revealed God’s wisdom and foreknowledge because before the twins Jacob and Esau were born, the Lord chose Jacob over Esau, the firstborn, seeing the character of Esau while he was yet unborn. Jacob was unnecessarily scheming to gain possession of the birthright for he was vying for something that was already his by the decree of God. Romans 9:10-13 “And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”.
The warning in Hebrews 12:16-17 “Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears”, was given to Jews living under the law who had heard the gospel of grace. The promises and blessings that come through Jesus Christ are the privileged birthright of believers and it is a profane act to cast aside Jesus, the blood of His cross, and the new birth as if it has no value just like Esau despised and scorned his birthright for a bowl of soup. The thought here opens the door to many examples of how people value everything in this life above God’s salvation and with a frivolous, profane decision at any moment, they will toss the things of God in the trash. For Jews, they were being offered the freedom of grace, deliverance from the bonds of the law but most just scoffed at the gift of grace. We gentiles are presented with this priceless treasure of grace that was not even ours by virtue of Israel being the firstborn yet the Lord in His goodness and mercy opened heaven’s doors to us and included us in the birthright. May we value what we have received from the Lord far above all this world has to offer.
February 16, 2022
John 12:28 “Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again”
In St John 11 a turning point occurred for the Lord after He raise Lazarus from the dead. This powerful miracle had such an impact on people that the Bible says in John 11:45 “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him”. Because of this amazing miracle and its influence on people, compelling them to have faith in the Lord, the scriptures say in John 11:53 “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death”. They were so desperate to murder Jesus and silence Him that the Bible says in John 12:10 “But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death”. The depth of evil in the human heart is so wicked, so filled with hate against God, and so devoid of love and compassion it will not stop at any heinous act to carry out its will. The Jewish religious leaders wanted to kill an innocent man because he was living proof of the Lord’s power and mind you, they did this while showing themselves to be righteous, spiritual followers of God and His Word. Complete, total depravity reigns in people, and without the restraining power of the Holy Spirit, we are all capable of unimaginable, abominable sins. In the beginning, we see a snapshot of ourselves and our corruption when Cain, filled with rage and jealousy, murdered his virtuous brother when his brother had done absolutely nothing against him and Cain did it while following a path of religion (Genesis 4:2).
As the religious world of His time was devising plans to kill Him, the Lord spoke out to the Heavenly Father the words recorded in today’s verse, imploring the Father to glorify the name of God to which an audible voice said “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again”. We might think religion that says it represents God is pleasing to the Lord and lifting His name up just because it is attached to some belief in God but that’s not the case. Consider the Jews, the very people who had been hand-picked by the Lord, who belonged to Him, who had received promises, covenants, and blessings. They were called to be a witness of His glory to all the nations of the world. But they chose to walk away from God in disobedience and the Bible says in Romans 2:24 “For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written” (Several times in the Old Testament). When they said with their mouth that they represented the Lord but then by their works they practiced idolatry and disobedience, instead of glorifying the name of God, it caused the other nations to mock the name of Jehovah God. But as the Lord Jesus desired that the name of our Heavenly Father be glorified, may that be our prayer: that as we have identified with God, may what we do and say be of such an honor of Him and His Word that His name is Glorified in us as given in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ”.
February 15, 2022
Joel 3:14 “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision”
Many sermons and Bible lessons have used today’s verse when calling for people to make a choice as to what they will do with the gospel of Christ. And believers can testify that they became Christians at a point when they were faced with an invitation from the Lord to repent and receive Christ as their Savior. Likewise, there are valleys of decisions we face in our journey that call us to choose to do what is right, no matter the cost and these have been sometimes called crossroads where we can choose to go one of several different ways. We need the Lord’s wisdom to make good choices. We parents see our children at such places, especially as they begin to mature, and our hearts get heavy on their behalf when they are faced with their valleys of decision that we know will impact their futures for better or worse. Many a dad has been taken aback when his daughter drags in some gangly young man and announces she’s found her soulmate. Talk about a valley of decision! The children of Israel were at such a place when God’s prophet confronted them about their idolatry in 1Kings 18:21” And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word”.
But in this chapter, God’s Word is laying out a panoramic view of the end times when the Lord brings the armies of the nations of the world together in a place here called the valley of Jehoshaphat to bring judgment upon them, Traditionally, some have thought it is referring to the Kidron valley, which begins between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount and runs as a gorge to the dead sea, although the Bible does not specifically refer to that particular valley as the valley of Jehoshaphat. Others believe these verses in Joel are referring to the gathering of nations for the battle of Armageddon as prophesied in Revelation 16:16 “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” and a possible location for such a gruesome would be the plain of Megiddo in the Jezreel valley and the wording here in Joel could be a rephrasing of all the Bible prophesies pointing to that war. What stands out in this is that the Lord has not forgotten or dismissed the hatred and violence this world has poured out against His people and their contempt of Him. Almost daily we watch the shenanigans of Russia, China, Iran, and others like them posturing themselves together and much of their common ground is their Loathing of Israel. But the times are coming when God will force them to a place where He will settle the score with a world that has done nothing but abuse His people and blaspheme His name.
February 14, 2022
1 John 3:1 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”
Today is Valentine’s Day and a lot of cards, flowers, and gifts will be passed between people along with a lot of candy, all in the name of love. Our perception of love is connected with belonging to someone, belonging together, and the feeling of being special to someone. The question, “Will you be my Valentine?”, carries the meaning of closeness and acceptance and the exclusiveness of the declaration, “You’re my one and only”, has the permanence people long for in a relationship, a sense of security that sets a couple apart in a bond of trust and interdependence. But all we know about love, apart from God’s love, is that it is not always permanent, and vows made one day can just as easily be broken the next. No number of cards, flowers, or gifts can guarantee that the pledges of love made between people will last or be followed up with faithfulness and respect. Today’s verse points us to a different kind of love, one not based on feelings or fleeting promises. Our Father in heaven has given us the love He declares in Jeremiah 31:3 “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee”. Human love usually comes with stipulations, conditions that we expect to be met and without them, our love falters, diminishes, and fails. Even the love bonds between parents and children are sometimes broken or damaged beyond repair but God’s love is boundless, unconditional, and as declared in the verse above, eternal.
The question as to why we love the Lord is easily answered and scriptures such as Psalm 116:1-2 “I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live” are good places to start thinking about reasons we have to love God. But the question as to why He loves us and why He purposed to love us before He began creation, knowing that we would betray Him, rebel against Him, and chose other gods over Him, is one of the great mysteries of all. Yet He chose us, loved us, forgave us, redeemed us, and did it all Himself with us kicking, screaming, and pulling away the entire time like a bunch of foolish, ungrateful brats. Today’s verse is written in a sense of amazement, a shocking realization beginning with the word “Behold”. That is, open your eyes wide and stare, look, be aware, gaze upon an attention-getting circumstance, and look for an answer. And the object of it is that our Heavenly Father loves us with such incredible depth and fierceness that He calls us His children. He didn’t just draw us to Himself, forgive us completely, and give us eternal life, He then adopted us, made us heirs of God forever, and purposed a plan He’s carrying out that He will live among us and with us forever. No wonder the question, “What kind of love is this?”. There are no words that can fully describe it, no volumes of books can explain it, and no amount of reasoning can figure it out.
February 13, 2022
Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God”
We live in a very anxious world with so much noise and all of it takes a toll on us and our families. We are so accustomed to the constant racket and pace of our daily lives that we don’t realize how overloaded our senses have become. For the Jews, God gave the law of the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week when all work, all commotion, all commerce, and most daily routines stopped and homes, hamlets, and cities became quiet and restful. Children and parents talked, worshipped, and spent the day at leisure, enjoying themselves together. In a past gone era, even here in America, many people observed Sunday as a time of rest and leisure. Stores and businesses closed, most people were off from their jobs, there were no blaring televisions or commotion, and families went to church, had family meals, children played, and people rested, talked, took walks, and read the paper or their favorite books. Nowadays, that sounds too good to be true and maybe a little boring to a generation that is so used to constant motion and clamor. But somewhere in the middle of the societal changes, the transition to a never resting, never slowing, seven-day-a-week 24/7 madcap culture we’ve completely lost sight of the most important thing in the universe: God. Looking at today’s verse, it’s enlightening that the Hebrew phrase “be still” means to cease from work, to relax, to become quiet, still, and to let go of struggles.
For most people, it has become difficult to get “away from it all” and find places where we can be quiet, still, and rest in the presence of the Lord. The Gospels tell us Jesus sometimes slipped away from the crowds and even His disciples to enjoy solitude with His Father and rest. But for us, even our times of prayer are interrupted and we feel rushed to finish our devotions and answer the call of the raging world around us. About half of adults have high blood pressure, twenty percent have anxiety disorders, and at least 48 percent of U.S. adults have some form of cardiovascular disease. Much of it is related in some way to the stress of our world certainly foreshadowing Luke 21:26 “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth”. In 1 Kings When Elijah became greatly discouraged, felt so all alone, and even desperate for his life, God revealed Himself to him. Not in a great earthquake, mighty wind, or a raging fire, but in a still small voice. These words, “Be still, and know that I am God” reveal God’s refusal to compete with the madness of the world for our attention and He does not reveal Himself in the man-made lunacy we baptize in daily but he waits for us to come apart with Him as echoed in Song of Solomon 2:9 “behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice”. His words in verse 10, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away” are His invitation for us to get to a quiet place, a place of stillness and rest where we can know Him in His fulness and glory, His lovingkindness and mercy. He is not our errand boy who quick-fixes our troubles, but He is the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, our Lord, our God, and our soon coming King.
February 12, 2022
Genesis 20:11 “And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake”
So much emphasis has been placed on our ability to have great faith that it’s possible to live with guilt, thinking we are unworthy or that our prayers are dismissed by the Lord because we are so weak in faith. The enemy is quick to point out that if only we had mighty faith, then we could be victorious and powerful Christians. When we couple this with the messed-up perception, we’ve been hammered with that we’re just poor, undeserving sinners, fleshly failures, and doomed to hang on by a thread of hope until finally, we get to heaven, we are duped and reduced to living far beneath our privilege as children of the Almighty King. This devotion is not intended to minimize the need and power of faith but to show how even at our best and times of our strongest faith, faith alone is not enough to carry us through. Today’s verse points to a statement made by Abraham when he and Sarah had traveled into the land of Gerar, controlled by a king named Abimelech. Abraham, the father of faith, is afraid for his life and tells the same half-truth about Sarah that he told Pharoah in a similar situation in Egypt, that she is his sister, afraid Abimelech will kill him and take Sarah. In fact, he admits in Genesis 20:13, he had concocted this story in advance before they’d even started their journey years before “And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her (Sarah), This is thy kindness which thou shalt shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother”. It appears he is willing to cowardly sacrifice the virtue of his wife whenever he thinks his own safety is at risk. What a view we have of this man of faith: on one hand, faith in God so strong he would have sacrificed Isaac, believing God would raise him from the dead (Hebrews 11:19) but other times stumbling in his faith, afraid for his own life and deceiving others with lies crafted to twist the truth. It doesn’t matter if it’s Abraham, Moses, or plain you and me, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
This part about Abraham shows us that even the strongest of believers still have their problems with their faith. The Lord gave us the accounts of their lives in the scriptures to show that the pressure is not on us to work, work, work at building up our faith but to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us the path to grow in grace because at the end of the story of every person’s life the grace of God is what causes us to triumph. When Abraham’s faith failed, in the accounts of his lapse into Egypt, lie to Abimelech, and his attempt to circumnavigate God’s plan for an heir by having a child with Hagar, God’s grace bailed him out every time and had it not been for God’s grace, Abraham would have failed. Take the encounter with Abimelech which happened at the very time God was getting ready to bring the miracle of Isaac’s birth about, had God not threatened Abimelech with death, Abimelech would have taken Sarah as his wife and Sarah might have conceived with his child. The grace of God prevails even and especially when our faith fails. The encouragement to us in 2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”, is the key to persevere through situations where we’ve certainly fallen short when it comes to our faith. The words of 2 Timothy 2:1 “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” gives us confidence that while our faith may vacillate, and let’s be honest about it because it does, it’s faith in the Lord’s grace that will carry us when we are at our weakest.
February 11, 2022
John 17:4 “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”
St John 17 is the greatest prayer in the Bible, prayed by the Lord Jesus at the closing of His life and ministry and right before He was arrested and crucified. Christ reaches into His soul and pours out His heart to His Father and although He speaks in short sentences, using plain everyday speech, His words reflect His very being and speak of His unity as one with His Father. In today’s verse, He declares His life has brought glory to the Heavenly Father and we know it is a statement of Jesus’ words recorded in John 8:29 “And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him”. It was written of the Messiah about 1000 years before His birth in Psalm 40:8 “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”. Seldom, it seems, do people ever see their lives and the way they live as a way to bring honor to the one who created them, who gave them life. By the will of our flesh and the distractions of the enemy, we manage to spend every day without dedicating ourselves to the glory of God as given in 1Corinthians 10:31 “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”. Oh, that we might be directed by the mind of Christ, realizing that our very existence on earth is not to serve or please ourselves but to give our full allegiance to the Lord and bring honor to Him. As Jesus lived a life that glorified the Father, so we walk in His ways, we imitate His life, and we are led by His Holy Spirit that we too will glorify God.
The Lord also said he finished the work the Father gave Him to do. Even though He spoke these words before he endured the suffering of the cross, the Bible declares in Revelation 13:8, Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”. God’s will and purpose transcends the ticking clock of our earthly time and all His purpose is declared finished before it has even started because nothing can alter its course. The Lord has a unique purpose for every one of us and even though we are different members of His body, with different abilities, different callings, and different paths, by God’s grace we can all do His will and complete what He has planned for us. The Apostle Paul, when he was nearing the end of his life, said in 2 Timothy 4:6 “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”. We all know someone that had such a testimony of Christ in their life that when they passed, we said “now there was a person that lived for the Lord” or “there was a person that was faithful to the Lord’s work”. What a wonderful view of a life lived on this earth as compared to one lived for pleasure, selfishness, or wasted in the mire of sin. As the man, Christ Jesus, the Savior of the world, died on the cross, His last words were “It is finished” (John 19:30).
February 10, 2022
Jonah 4:4 “Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?”
Jonah ran from the Lord because he didn’t want to go to Nineveh and his narrative about being swallowed alive by a huge fish then spit out on the seashore is one of the mainstays of Bible stories and the subject of countless “you can’t run from God” sermons. The scriptures tell us that after Jonah was expelled from the whale’s belly, he ran into Nineveh, preaching the message the Lord sent him to declare, and the people of Nineveh, from the king on down, began repenting and the Lord had mercy on them. We might think if Jonah had had a blog or website in his day he might have begun writing about the good news and the success of his mission and posting pictures and testimonies of those who turned to God for salvation. But something strange happened to Jonah. The Bible says in Jonah 4:1 when the people turned to the Lord, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry”. It’s strange because the Bible explains what would have made Jonah happy, was if God had destroyed the more than 120,000 people who lived there, wiped them out completely. He regarded them as such wicked sinners that they didn’t deserve any mercy from God and should be destroyed. This is what prompted the Lord’s question to him in today’s verse, “Do you have the right to be angry?”. God asked people questions a lot of times in the scriptures as a way of getting them to check their hearts such as “Adam, where art thou?” and to Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?”. In Jonah’s case, the Lord was revealing the lack of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness within Jonah, pointing out the reason for his great anger.
Jonah wasn’t just mad about God sparing the people of Nineveh, but the Bible said while he sat on a hill overlooking Nineveh to see if perhaps their repentance would fail and God would end up destroying them after all, the Lord caused a big vine to grow very quickly and provide shade from the sun. At first, the Bible says Jonah was very happy about the vine but when God sent a worm to cut it down and the sun began to shine its heat on Jonah, he again became very angry. The Lord asked Jonah if he had the right to be angry about the vine and have pity on it when he didn’t even have anything to do with it being there and at the same time could not have compassion and pity on the people and animals of Nineveh who didn’t even know right from wrong. We sometimes miss the real meaning of the little book of Jonah and get stuck on the rebellion of Jonah against the Lord and the miracle of his three days and nights inside the fish when the lesson is about the goodness and mercy of God and the unwillingness of some people to accept that the ways of the Lord are right and God will do whatever He wants with His creation. Our response should always be that people are worth saving otherwise God wouldn’t do it and whatever God wants and decrees we should be in full agreement with Him. May we rejoice at every salvation and every opportunity God gives people to come to him and may our hearts always cry 2 Samuel 22:31 “As for God, his way is perfect”.
February 9, 2022
1 Corinthians 10:13 “but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it”
Today’s verse above declares God’s faithfulness in a way that seems almost contradictory because we usually associate the Lord’s faithfulness with His provisions, protections, and comforting presence. But here it’s in reference to things we go through that the Lord doesn’t immediately deliver us from, things called temptations and the Greek word “peirasmos” means a trial, a time of proving, testing, and can mean adversity or trouble. The enemy and our flesh argue that if God is being faithful and kind, He would block all the trials or deliver us from them before they become a problem to us. People who will not believe in God or are agnostic sometimes point out that if God loves us as we say, then why does He not remove all that seems harmful and unfair? From a believer’s viewpoint, we can’t explain all the circumstances and can only reply that the Lord is sovereign and His wisdom is beyond our human reasoning but we trust Him that whatever He does or allows, He is still just, merciful, and moves in love. The mystery of His will is His alone and when we can’t understand the answers, faith steps in and declares as Job in 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” and references such scriptures as 2 Corinthians 4:17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”.
The Lord will not allow any trial or the severity of any trial to be above our ability to deal with it and yes, sometimes we simply must bear it. We can use all kinds of analogies to help explain our view of it all such as for the body to get in its best physical shape we have to push our exercising to the max to achieve strength and endurance. To develop fine motor skills we have to practice, practice, practice, and do it all over again and again. But our best attempts to explain and make sense of the trials some people go through, seasons of loss, affliction, disappointments, betrayals, and down-right hardships, leaves us at a loss to paint a clear picture of what is happening in the reality of the frustrations, tears and cries to the Lord. Faith tells us that when the storm is over, when the refining has ended, and when the burdens are lifted there will be victory, joy, and gladness but in the meanwhile, we have to bear it and God will remain faithful through it all. He is with us, He is for us, and He is helping us. Even though the valley of the shadow of death, He walks with us, carries us, and hears our cries. These are times when we can fall in line with Galatians 6:2 “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” and help each other in trials. We Learn and teach other believers that God’s way is not the path of non-resistance but as our Savior taught, it is a way of cross-bearing, seasons of testing, conflicts of opposition, and sometimes, of trials of endurance like a long-distance runner who keeps racing towards the prize (Philippians 3:14). “But God is faithful” keeps us pressing through the trials and reaching forward through burdens because we know His ways are perfect and He is doing a work in us, for us, and through us that will bring honor to Him and glory for us.
February 8, 2022
Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went”
Abraham was 75 years old when he packed up everything he owned and he and Sarah started walking in obedience to the call of God. The scriptures tell us he had no idea where he was headed. Although he had some delays at first, when the Holy Spirit recorded the account here in Hebrews, God makes no remembrance of Abraham’s slow start, only of his faith to obey. Most of us want to have some idea of where the Lord is leading us and taking bold steps of faith into what to us seems uncertain, removes us from our place of comfort into an area where we must fully trust that God will not fail us. Abraham set one foot in front of the other in his journey of faith and the Lord didn’t reveal His plan to him for the land until Abraham had made his way to the plain of Moreh and there, God began confirming His promise and Abraham built an altar in response at Bethel. Abraham is our example that God wants us to take Him at His Word and act on His promises whether or not we can understand how He will do what He said and whether or not we can make sense out of the path He has given us to follow. The Lord didn’t provide Abraham a map or send Him a guide to help him navigate through the desert, it was all a journey of faith, trusting God would direct the way and supply the needs. We know the end of the story, that Abraham ended up exactly where God wanted him and all the Lord promised was confirmed to him over the span of several years.
At some place and time in our Christian life, we need to be convinced that the Lord is faithful to His Word and that He will never fail us. We need to trust Him even though we can’t see the solutions or understand His ways. We must learn to walk in faith even though we have no idea how He will get us to where we need to be. And then we have to learn to be patient, trusting He will reveal what He is doing in His own timing, in a sort of “need to know” fashion. Much of our anxiety in the journey is our lack of confidence in His promises or perhaps not knowing His promises well enough to lay hold on them. When we know we are not living in deliberate disobedience, that we are not willfully harboring unbelief then we can be certain we are not in a season of correction and that we can have the assurance whatever is happening, whatever is being allowed in our life is God’s purpose for us else He would be directing us in another direction. Our praying through our situations is not us helping God chart our course, but us learning to yield to the hand of the potter, trusting His providence and grace and that He is working all things for our good to complete in us what He started. Abraham made his blunders and missteps but none of those kicked him out of God’s plan for him and in the closing chapters of his life, he was where he was supposed to be, with the miraculous son, Isaac, God had promised him, and living fully blessed and contented. We can be “confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
February 7, 2022
Hebrews 6:1 “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God”
Parents celebrate the milestones when raising their children and the first tooth, the first step, and the first word along with the day diapers are over and done are all momentous occasions. The final goal is their maturity, reached in increments, and this is the thought of today’s verse for Christians. The word “perfection” here is completeness, the level of adulthood and implies some labor or effort in the process. While salvation is not a process but an instant miracle of the new birth, Christian maturity is a dynamic process of learning, testing, trusting, and time. When the Bible says we should leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ it is not saying for us to abandon them but rather that we should stop seeing the basic fundamental doctrines mentioned here and in the next verse: repentance and faith, baptisms and laying on of hands, and the resurrection and judgment as the completion of the Christian journey. These are the basics; the foundation of our new life and the Lord calls us to build upon these as we reach for maturity. Looking back to the rebuke that was given in chapter 5 we see in verses 12-13 “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe”. They were stuck in their Christian infancy and the Holy Spirit was urging them on towards a place where they no longer had to be reassured of the basics over and over but they could grow enough to help others.
The scriptures repeat this pattern several times such as in Ephesians 4:13-15 “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ”. We get the sense of stability, wisdom, unity, and Christ-like maturity. The opposite can be seen in the Corinthian Christians that were told they were babies that were always fighting among themselves and unable to handle the mature doctrines of truth. They were warned about the responsibility of building carefully on the foundations of basic faith (1 Corinthians 3). If you meet adults that can only talk about the day they were born, are playing with colored blocks, are still eating baby food, and wearing a diaper, clearly, something is wrong. If the minister asks the congregation to turn to the book of St John and a look of bewilderment comes across people’s faces as they start looking for the table of contents in the Bible, there’s also a problem although nowadays they’re most likely to pull up their Bible App that locates it for them. God’s plan for us is to reach maturity and get there by growing meaning we read and study His Word, we go through trials that strengthen our faith, we hear God’s Word preached, and we practice what we’re learning. We are especially attuned to 2Peter 3:18 “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”. In that growth and knowledge comes the balance and strength that we need as explained by Hebrews 5:14 “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil”.
February 6, 2022
Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”
Our image of the Patriarchs and how we think about them is influenced by Bible stories we heard as children and artists’ paintings and drawings. Nowadays, children exposed to the Old Testament see it from cartoons or animated videos. Maybe we come away with a feeling that those saints were less intelligent, simplistic, or more uncivilized than we are but they were just as smart, just as mindful if not more so of the world around them. Their feats and abilities, judging by archeological finds, show they had complex, intricate societies, and their language and interpersonal relationships were deep and fulfilling. Especially important were their views of God and their relationship with Him. Today’s verse tells us the saints of the past, such as Abraham, had spiritual vision that looked way past their immediate circumstances to a future that is beyond their present. Look at the words of Jesus in John 8:56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad”, showing us Abraham looked over 1700 years into the future and saw the coming Messiah. This is quite a long-distance scope of faith, spiritual awareness, and the future considering modern people can’t look past their cell phone screens and most have no hope or knowledge of what lies ahead in eternity. The Saints of old had spiritual vision that the scripture says convinced them so deeply that they “embraced” what they saw meaning they welcomed, wrapped their arms around, and saluted what they saw and it was so real to them they acknowledged this earth was not their home.
Our view of what is to come is very often clouded by the here and now as we are so busy, so distracted from the things of the Lord, and so given to the immediate gratification of the moment that we don’t have time to set our minds on things above (Colossians 3:1-2). The scriptures declare that the view of the mind of Christ is described in 2Corinthians 4:18 “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal”. This view brings us joy and hope because it shows that what’s just around the corner for us is the eternal bliss for the people of God and whatever we struggle with, what brings pain and sorrow, what comes to us because of the curse and the elements of this world is just a temporary season of time. Like the saints of old that looked around them in the here and now and then chose to lift their vision to that which they saw ahead and said “there is where I belong, there is where I’m going, and there is where I’ll be with my maker and redeemer forever so we too put it all into its proper perspective. People embrace the present as if it’s their final destination and they allow their past to hold them in the prisons of regret and pain but the Lord has provided a better view. The thief on the cross was suffering, bleeding, and dying beside our Lord but when he cried out to Jesus for mercy, the Lord directed his vision away from his present circumstances by saying “truly I say to you that today you will be with me in paradise”. Jesus is still daily speaking those words to us, encouraging us to look up past the here and now to what waits for us in the near future. Praise God, we have hope, we have joy, we have peace, we have God’s promise, and we can sing “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. O what a foretaste of glory divine!”.
February 5, 2022
Matthew 17:27 “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee”
The miracle of the coin in the fish’s mouth is only told here in Matthew and it seems one of the lesser miracles of our Lord but a careful reading of the story reveals a great truth that is important for our lives. According to Exodus 30:13, all males paid a “temple tax” of half a shekel for the maintenance of the temple and it was this tax that was in question here. When the Lord entered Capernaum, the tax collectors asked Peter if Jesus paid the tribute tax and Peter answered a quick “yes” before he discussed the matter with Christ. Jesus afterward asked Peter if the children of the kings of the earth paid taxes or did others pay them and Peter answered that the children of the kings were not obligated to pay tax and Jesus said the children are free from this responsibility. Since the tax was for His Father’s house Jesus was not in obligation to pay but He spoke the words in today’s verse which is about doing something He didn’t really have to do to keep from causing controversy. The word “offend” is the Greek word “skandalizo” which means to trip someone, cause someone to fall, or to cause a person to sin. Jesus could have drawn a line in the sand and said “I don’t have to pay this tax and it doesn’t matter what people think about it because God knows the truth. If people don’t like it, they can lump it”. But He chose instead to pay the tax to avoid unnecessary contention and thereby, He set an example and standard for us to follow.
When we apply this under the life of grace, we are drawn to many scriptures in the New Testament that teach this principle. Philippians 2:14-15 “Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” comes to mind as does Romans 14:13 where we are taught to let “no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way”. Our freedom in Christ comes with a responsibility that is given in 1Corinthians 8:9 “But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak” and again in 1Corinthians 10:32 “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God”. Just as Jesus could have declared Himself free from the tax, we also can exercise our freedoms under grace that might confuse and offend others or cause them to stumble. But the Holy Spirit sets a different standard for us, based on the example of Christ and is trumpeted by the Apostle Paul in 1Corinthians 8:13 where he is explaining that if eating something others believe is forbidden by God even though he could do so under the liberty of grace, he said: “Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend”. Jesus told Peter to toss a fishing line in the water and the first fish he caught would have a coin in its mouth, enough to pay tax for them both. This miracle didn’t have a direct effect on anyone such as a healing or delivering miracle, but it indirectly stopped potential trouble before it had a chance to begin.
February 4, 2022
Proverbs 23:26 “My son, give me thine heart”
We can see today’s verse as instructions from a wise father to his child but in a scriptural sense, as it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is the voice of our Heavenly Father to His children. It is more than an invitation; it is the Almighty laying claim to what He wants from us: our heart. This month of February is the month in which we celebrate Valentine’s Day and all the hearts associated with it are symbols of love, devotion, and promises. But the Bible is God’s letter to us telling us of His great love for us and in a sense, He has already given us His heart when He gave His Son to suffer and die in our place. What He wants in return is not the measure of money, offerings, or any other thing we might think shows our allegiance to Him, but He wants the devotion and love that emanates from within us. When a lawyer came to the Lord, trying to scrutinize Him in Matthew 22, he asked “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”. Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment”. The matter of giving our heart to God in love then is the basis of law and as the Law is fulfilled in Christ, it becomes the desire of the Holy Spirit within us and for us to approach our Heavenly Father on this ground. Consider the words of Lamentations 3:40-41 “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens” meaning we lift our heart along with our hands. The raising of the hands may be a part of our symbols and body movements of prayer and worship but without the offering of the heart, it is just religious gesturing.
God spoke of His people in Hosea 10:2, “Their heart is divided” and we know that in any relationship, a divided heart leads to disaster. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other”. This is the thought of Psalm 119:10 “With my whole heart have I sought thee” and 2Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him”. Sometimes we call this singleness of heart towards God a clean heart (Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God”), a pure heart (2Timothy 2:22 “them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart”), or an honest heart (Luke 8:15 “an honest and good heart”). We hear the desire of our God in the words “my son, give me your heart” and we know that the Lord has continually drawn us, called us, and urged us to follow Him with our whole heart and that He has made every way possible for us to have an eternal relationship with Him. May we pray the Holy Spirit will reveal God’s Word to us for it is through the understanding of His Word that we come to know our Heavenly Father and His grace and as we grow in grace, we grow in our love for Him. The Lord declared in Jeremiah 24:7 “And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart” and while this prophecy was spoken about Israel, we know it is the truth of our heart’s Love for the Lord: 1John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us”.
February 3, 2022
Exodus 32:3 “And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt”
When the Israelites were delivered from Egypt their journey took them to Mt Sinai, a distance of about 430 miles and from the Bible text, this took them about 47 days. They had witnessed many miracles of God’s power including the plagues in Egypt, the freedom from their Egyptian bondage, the Red Sea crossing, the daily provision of manna, and the supply of water from a rock. In all these things the Lord proved Himself to be powerful and working on their behalf, victorious over all the gods of the Egyptians. When they arrived at the foot of Mt Sinai, the Mt of God, the Lord told Moses to meet Him on the mountain and Moses was with the Lord for 40 days as God revealed His laws for the people and the plans for an elaborate tabernacle and it’s furnishings that would be a central place of worship for all the tribes of Israel. But after a while, the people became weary of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain and demanded Aaron, Moses’ spokesperson, to make them a god to be their leader for they said in verse 1, “as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him”. The sorrow here is that Moses was meeting with God on their behalf and the Lord was revealing a wonderful plan of blessing for His people. But in their impatience, they began to make choices in sinful temptation that turned them to idolatry: the creation and worship of a gold image of a calf. What we do in our times of waiting on the Lord’s next move can either move us closer to Him in humble trust and patience, knowing He is at work for us, or push us to act in the impatience of self-will towards unbelief and sin. The scriptures often remind us to wait on the Lord and He will deliver us, bless us, and cause His purpose to be done.
The gold that the people gave to make their idol, came from the treasures the Lord had provided them when they left Egypt. The night before they left, the Bible says in Exodus 12:35 “And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed (asked, requested) of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent(gave) unto them such things as they required.” At the Mt of God, they took what the Lord had given them for a blessing and gave it willingly to be made into an evil, blasphemous idol. The images of calves and bulls were common in the pagan demonic religions around them including Egypt where the Egyptians worshiped the false god Apis, formed as a bull. Even though this may not seem like a problem in our modern world, where idolatry doesn’t involve bowing down to an image or idol, still our world is filled with idols and man-made temples where people willingly give their hearts, minds, and resources to pleasure, products, sports, and religions, addicting themselves just as ancient people bowed before their graven images. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:14 “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry”. Where does your heart’s allegiance lie? To whom or what do you serve and give yourself? Is the Lord your God? May the Holy Spirit search us and reveal the answers to these questions and may we reply with the words of the Lord Jesus when he faced the enemy in temptation, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”.
February 2, 2022
Revelation 12:10 “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night”
We are so immersed in our daily lives with all our routines and responsibilities that we forget other scenarios are constantly playing out in the unseen realm of the supernatural. Angels are around us and among us commissioned by the Lord on behalf of His people and demons are doing their evil deeds. The Holy Spirit is at work carrying out God’s purpose and plans and in the presence of God, Satan is bringing charges against the saints and Jesus is there interceding for us. The story of Job gives us an insight of this in Job 1:6 “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them”. Satan, a fallen angel, at this time has access to the earth and the presence of the Lord and he also roams the earth as a roaring lion taking interest in God’s creation and then he comes before the Lord to lay charges of blame against God’s people, accusing them perhaps by pointing out their failings, flaws, and various sins. At the same time Jesus stands up for us as our High Priest, Hebrews 7:25 “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” and 1 John 2:1 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”.
Today’s verse tells of the time in the future when Satan will no longer have access to the presence of God and will never again be our accuser. The verse before today’s verse tells how not just the devil is cast out but also it says “his angels were cast out with him” and notice these angels are called “his angels”. This marks the beginning of the end for him and his demons for after the seven years of tribulation, he will be cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years then finally into the lake of fire which the Bible says in Matthew 25:41 is “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”. We look forward with great joy to the day when sin and Satan are put away forever and we enter into our eternal home. Even now in this world we live in, if there was no sin, no Satan, and no curse, this would be a most wonderful place but the Bible says in 1Corinthians 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”. If almost two thousand years ago the Holy Spirit inspired Peter to write 1Peter 4:7 “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer” how much closer the coming of the Lord must be at this very moment! If we believe we are living in the final dispensation before the appearing of our Lord, then at the time 1 Peter was written 2/3 of the entire span of the world’s existence had already elapsed and we’re closing out the final 1/3. Praise God what lies ahead includes the devil being de-throned as the prince and power of the air (Ephesians 2:2) and the children of God will be given their eternal possession. This is what we were created for, why our Savior died, and what our soul has been longing for.
February 1, 2022
2Corinthians 5:16 “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”
People who visit our area here in upper East Tennessee always talk about how beautiful it is as they describe the mountains, the rolling hills, and the many creeks, rivers, and lakes. Those of us who have grown up here sometimes take it all for granted until we come across some of these flat-landers who think the area is so beautiful they say they’d love to retire and settle down here and we take another look at this place we call home and agree with them that it’s an awesome place to live. As with many things in life, it’s all about our point of view at the time. Today’s verse comes right before verse 17, the well-known scripture that says we are new creations in Christ but seldom do we reference it with the teaching of perspective taught in this verse 16. After a person is saved, they look the same, may act the same, live in the same house, and appear unchanged in all other aspects yet we know they are not the same person for whereas before they were children of darkness, alienated from God, and destined for destruction, the new birth makes them children of God, new creations, and citizens of heaven.
We are told here to stop seeing them as they were before and this changes our perception, our point of view. The verse goes on to say that all those who knew Jesus in His human element, as the son of Mary, a sibling to His brothers and sisters, and someone they saw walking the roads like any other man, had to stop seeing Him that way after His resurrection because everything about Him changed. On a grander scale, the baby Jesus in the manger or the preacher Jesus mingling with the crowds during His ministry is nothing like the Jesus in Revelation 1 who was so majestic, so powerful, and so glorious John writes in verses 17-18 “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death”. What a different point of view from the man they whipped, spat on, and nailed to a cross. Perspective changes every way we view and interpret the world around us. A pastor called to a little church with a small attendance could say “Lord, why are You sticking me here in a failing congregation?” or he might say, “Thank You Lord for this wonderful opportunity to preach Your Word and trust You for great things”. We might see others as they were before, just like we knew them growing up or as they were before they gave their lives to the Lord but God is calling us away from this limited, outdated, and fleshly view by telling us to see them as He sees them: blessed, sanctified, robed in Christ’s righteousness, and children of the Eternal King. Our point of view sets us up for a glorious perspective.