God Among The gods

Today’s Reading:

• Micah 6:1-7:20; 2 Chronicles 32:1-8; 2 Kings 18:13-18; Isaiah 36:1-3; 2 Kings 18:19-37; Isaiah 36:4-22

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• “Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The LORD will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the LORD can rescue Jerusalem from me?” – Isaiah 36:18-20, NLT

Thoughts:

• It’s easy to wonder if perhaps our God isn’t so unique.

Obviously, if you’ve read anything I have written so far, you know that I am a Christian. I believe in the God of the Bible—of the Old and New Testaments—and I believe specifically that we are set free from our sins and invited to know Him through His Son Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose from the dead and lives forever as the eternal God who also became a man. I believe that I have a relationship with God, and that His Holy Spirit lives in me and changes me and reminds me to look to Jesus day by day.

As a Christian, I also believe that this is the only true God. I deny that the God of Islam is the same God. I deny that those who follow Judaism know the true God, even though they share more than half of my Bible with me, because Judaism without Jesus Christ knows something about the true God but refuses to know Him as He has fully revealed Himself to be. I deny the many gods of Hinduism to be real gods—perhaps demons, but not gods. I deny the gods of ancient Greece, the gods of ancient Rome, the gods of animism, the gods of the cults, the gods that were worshiped by ancient Israel’s neighbors, and any other god or gods that anyone might claim deserve mankind’s worship. There is only one true God. And I know Him.

There. Now I sound really arrogant.

But more than that, in today’s world, I might actually sound stupid. Because in today’s world, with a whole academic field devoted to comparative religions, scholars have discovered not only that different religions are different, but that different religions and deity-related mythologies are eerily similar. For instance, see this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY. The argument in this video is similar to the argument made by Sennacherib’s “chief of staff” (NLT): “Gods are all pretty much the same. The LORD/Jesus is a God/god. Therefore, the LORD/Jesus is no more powerful or real than any other deity.”

How do we deal with this argument? In some ways, it seems to have merit. After all, even though we Christians call many beneficial events in our lives “miraculous,” most of the events we call miracles happen to unbelievers from other religions, and even to atheists. How many of our experiences have been brought to scientists and subjected to their thorough scrutiny to such an extent that even atheists have to deal with scientifically documented evidence of God’s work in our world? And even if we had a bunch of scientifically inexplicable stories, it may well be that people from other religions have some, too—stories which they would use to leverage people toward faith in their gods. And then we would have to deal with the reality that these stories are not the norm—even Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego admitted that God might not help them out of their fiery predicament (Daniel 3:17-18). Christians often go through experiences just as horrible as the experiences anybody else would go through.

I have a couple of suggestions for refuting this argument. First, we should examine (as I still need to do more thoroughly) similar stories to find out whether they were viewed as true earthly history or not. Second, we should examine what archaeology has revealed about our own God, in order to find out what kinds of evidence exist regarding His impact on earthly history. Third, perhaps we should take better notes on current miraculous events—scientists are doing studies to compare healings among prayed for people and unprayed for people, and those of us who have seen God’s wonders ought to be helping them explore the evidence we have experienced. Fourth, we need to turn back to the pages of our Scriptures to remember what the Bible says that God has done in space and time history—the list is very impressive, and we need to consider whether history could possibly have resulted in today’s world without God’s intervention.

Because the Bible’s claim is that God sometimes does intervene. In tomorrow’s reading (2 Kings 19) Hezekiah is saved from an army of 185,000 Assyrians in response to his prayers. If that’s just a myth, then don’t believe it. But if this really happened, don’t just call it a coincidence (even if God used some horrible earthly plague to defeat the huge army). If this is history, then God is not just one of the gods. He is exactly who He claims to be, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe who loves His people, who sent Jesus to save all who believe in Him, and who is making all things new in His time.

Even if others sometimes think of Jesus as just “one of the (false) gods,” the question still remains – Are they right or wrong? The benefits of knowing Him are nothing to sneeze at just because others claim He’s nonsense. Don’t miss out unless there’s nothing to miss out on. Pursue the truth.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Andrew Smith’s sermon: Let Your Yes Be Yes

I didn’t have time today to write any thoughts on my devotional readings. But I did hear a wonderfully compelling message today when I attended theGathering (www.theGatheringNC.org - note: the message is probably not actually entitled "Let Your Yes Be Yes"). Andrew Smith preaches from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and does a wonderful job explaining why taking oaths makes no sense if you believe that God created, oversees and owns everything… including you. Let’s see if the sermon’s already online or not… Ok, so it’s not quite up yet (but I don’t know whether my sermons ever got online before Monday, either—often Tuesday. That’s asking a lot.) Still, his sermons from the past several weeks are online, which I’m sure are terrific, because in my one and only time listening to his preaching I found him to be passionately faithful to Jesus. So go to http://www.thegatheringnc.org/messagecenter.aspx?parentnavigationid=10677, listen to a message or two, and bookmark the page so that you have the chance to hear today’s message soon. Maybe even tomorrow. ‘Night, y’all!

Forgetting and Mingling

Today’s Reading:

• Psalms 105-106

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• They forgot God, their savior, who had done such great things in Egypt. – Psalm 106:21, NLT

• Instead, they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs. – Psalm 106:35, NLT

Thoughts: Losing your walk with Jesus is as easy as forgetting and mingling.

Why do people lose their faith in Jesus? Surprisingly, it’s pretty easy to do. All you need are two common life skills: forgetting and mingling.

Forgetting is when you stop thinking about your history with Jesus. You stop remembering what He did for you. You stop realizing how much He is doing for you. You put your mind on other things, and you downplay His role in your life. Amazingly, the Israelites were able to forget about God’s wonders and how He had miraculously brought them out of Egypt even while Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God! And having forgotten Him, they replaced Him with a golden calf. We are amazingly adept at forgetting.

And forgetting is even more easy when we’re mingling. Mingling is simply getting into a community. Different communities have different ways of thinking and talking about the world. So if we’re from one community, but then we mingle with another community, it creates a conflict inside of us wherever the communities differ from one another. Something inside of us yearns to be fully accepted by the people we’re mingling with. And this yearning makes us try to conform to each community’s standards for acceptance. Mingling with a new community that doesn’t think the same way as our original community—whether this involves a farmer moving to the city, a smoker living among non-smokers, a northerner living in the south or a Christian befriending unbelievers—encourages us to forget our old patterns and adopt new ways of talking and behaving so that we can adapt and fit in to new surroundings less conspicuously.

And voila! Life transformation occurs! Unless a person figures out what it will look like to hold on to his or her original pattern while still living in a new community (or rejects the new community entirely), forgetting and mingling result in adapting. The farm boy sets aside farm life and replaces it with city life. The smoker tries to quit smoking until he either gives up, leaves his new home or (possibly) succeeds. The northerner learns to interpret the southern drawl and to say, “Yes, sir,” and, “No, ma’am.” And the Christian adopts the unbelievers’ lifestyles and thoughts and ways of talking about reality.

Adaptation is natural. It can feel necessary. In some cases, for survival, it is necessary. So the question of whether to adapt or not depends on convictions. In most cases, people have no convictions against adapting. Moving from the farm to the city? Sure, learn to live the city life. Moving in with non-smokers? Sure, try to quit smoking. Moving south? Sure, adapt to the drawl. But matters of faith and morality are matters of conviction. To hold on to our original faith while mingling with a new community requires a conviction that keeps us remembering, rather than forgetting. And the very convictions required for remembering are the convictions that seem to melt away the more we mingle.

Living among people who oppose our convictions can be extremely internally challenging. Living with people always involves some degree of mingling with them. Disagreements will become obvious soon enough. If a believer wants to maintain his faith, there’s going to be a cost. Mingling will always have to stop short of agreeing with words or behaving in ways that deny his convictions. Forgetting will have to be fought by disciplined self-reminders and, if possible, by plugging into a community of people who share the same convictions and care about remembering them together.

We all face the challenge to forget, mingle and adapt to people around us. How does this play out in your life? Are you forgetting, mingling and adapting? Or are you remembering, limiting mingling with convictions and staying faithful?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Denying History

Today’s Reading:

• Psalms 98-100; 102; 104

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• He spoke to Israel from the pillar of cloud, and they followed the laws and decrees he gave them. – Psalm 99:7, NLT

Thoughts:
History is history.

It’s fairly easy to question the Bible. There are lots of accounts that talk about individuals hearing from God and speaking for God and other spiritual experiences like that. When people today claim to be speaking for God, we’re at least a little skeptical, especially when their messages don’t match up with the kinds of messages that the Bible depicts God speaking throughout history. If we just apply our skepticism to the Bible, all these claims about spiritual experiences sound a little bit sketchy.

We want something more tangible. A common suggestion I’ve heard is, “If only God would write a message for me in the clouds…” Clouds are visible. Clouds are able to be experienced by multiple people at the same time, so multiple witnesses can corroborate one another’s testimony if something strange happens up there in the sky. If five people came and told you that they had all seen the same message in the sky, and they seemed to be fairly sane people apart from this claim, and if they never changed their story and it impacted their lives, wouldn’t that be a pretty strong reason to believe their claim to receiving a message from God (especially before the ability to write cloudy messages with airplanes was developed)?

Ok, so let’s go back a few thousand years to the story found in Exodus—the story of how God rescued Israel from Egypt and led them through the desert. I seem to remember a cloud. Oh, yes! Here we go. Exodus 13:21: “By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people” (NIV). From a cloud, God protected Israel (Exod. 14:19-24), demonstrated His presence (Exod. 16:10; 40:34-35), spoke to Moses in the nation’s hearing (Exod. 19:9, 16; 24:15-18; 33:9-10), covenanted with the people (Exod. 34:5-28) and guided them in all their travels (Exod. 40:36-38).

This is history! And it’s history that is very difficult to refute. The Israelites experienced this cloud for at least forty years (Exodus 40:36-38; Num. 9:16-22; 32:13; Deut. 2:7; 8:2). And not just Moses—they all experienced it, all the millions of them that were there (Exod. 12:37; 33:10; 40:38)! That’s a lot of witnesses! That’s a lot of time! It changed their lives and the course of their history forever! And if this weren’t true, why on earth would the millions of people who finally entered the promised land after starting off as teenagers and children in Egypt and traveling through a desert for forty years ever allow Moses and Joshua to write such a blatant lie into their history? Why would they agree that it was true? Why would they allow such lies to become their holy Scriptures?

Only one good reason exists for including this forty year cloud in Israel’s history. This cloud is history. Not fantasy. Not myth. Not just a good story. It’s history. And as much as our modern world has a hard time understanding the kind of phenomenon described in Exodus, history is history. It happened. Really. Those who deny it are denying the shared claim of millions of people who shared the same visible, tangible history.

Personally, I can’t do that. Can you?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

The Demise of the Fittest

Today’s Reading:

• Psalms 1-2; 10; 33; 71; 91

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• The best equipped army cannot save a king, nor is great strength enough to save a warrior. – Psalm 33:16, NLT

Thoughts:
The strongest and fittest still fall.

We’re used to thinking about the “survival of the fittest.” It’s inspiring to think that if we just grow strong enough, equip ourselves well enough, adapt readily enough and think intelligently enough, we will survive and even flourish.

But that’s not what is meant by the “survival of the fittest.” What is meant is that being strong enough, equipped enough, adaptable enough and intelligent enough will allow us to survive long enough. Long enough for what? To pass on our hereditary information to the next generation. Because if we take a quick reality check, the truth is that the fittest do not survive. The fittest die.

The Bible talks about the demise of the fittest. All of creation is vulnerable. All humanity is weak. A microscopic one-celled organism can invade our systems, colonize, and overwhelm us. The TSA as a system can vanquish 999,999 terrorist plots—but if just 1 terrorist plot succeeds, tens, hundreds and even thousands of people descend into the grave. The Secret Services can have a near-perfect record, but one lapse in judgment is all that it takes for an assassin to have his way. The survival of the fittest applies, at best, to DNA. On the personal level, reality demonstrates 100% of the time that we should be talking about the demise of the fittest.

When the fittest meet their demise, who can save them?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Sin: A Reason for Faith

Today’s Reading:

• Psalms 47-49; 84-85; 87

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• You forgave the guilt of your people—yes, you covered all their sins. - Psalm 85:2, NLT

Thoughts:
Sin is a universal experience.

One reason that I am thankful to Jesus is that I trust Him when He says that He offers forgiveness for all my sins. And part of the reason that I trust Him for forgiveness is… well… I guess it’s that I realize that I’m actually a sinner, and I see sin all around me. In other words, I see such a great need for forgiveness that I believe Jesus when He says that we need it.

I’m going to throw out a challenge here, and it applies regardless of whether you’re a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, a member of any other religion… or even not a member of any religion at all! Has anyone ever known a man or woman who never, ever, not once in his or her entire life, even as a child, never, ever, EVER did ANYTHING wrong? Do you know anyone who has never told even a little white lie? Who has never had lewd thoughts? Who has never lost their temper, for even the briefest of moments? Who has never even thought about cheating? Who has never wished something awful would happen to someone else?

Because I haven’t. I have known people—Christians and non-Christians—who are extremely respectable, honorable, self-controlled, gentle, kind, peaceful and all the rest of the best words we have for the best people. But I have never known someone who was morally perfect throughout his or her entire life. Never.

And that’s what the Bible means when it talks about sin. The word “sinner” doesn’t imply that a person behaves like a maniacal, out-of-control criminal. The word “sinner” doesn’t indicate that a man is abusive toward his wife, that a woman always sleeps around, that teenagers are constantly looking for ways to abuse their parents’ trust and land themselves in juvenile court, or that children have watched too much TV and are about to unload 2000 rounds of ammo at their elementary schools.

A “sinner” is the sweetest grandma you’ve ever met, a lady who regrets the one time when she really lost her patience with a telemarketer. A “sinner” is your hard-working, reliable co-worker, a man who constantly volunteers his services to the community, but who secretly feels ashamed for the moment when he allowed himself to pursue his desires a little too far with the attractive female in HR—even though he put a stop to things before they’d gone “all the way.” A sinner is the gentle child who finally got fed up with another kid’s pestering and hit the little fellow in the face with her lunch box.

A “sinner” is me. And you. I’ve never yet met a non-sinner. And that’s the way that Jesus says this world is. He’s right about us. So I trust Him.

And since the same One who is right about sin is the One who died to offer us His forgiveness, I’d say that there’s quite a bit of reason for hope.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Take God Seriously Now, Because One Day We’ll All Take Him Seriously

Today’s Reading:

• Psalms 42-46

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. – Psalm 46:10, NLT

Thoughts:
People will not be able to rebel forever.

I may or may not have noticed before, but this verse that talks about being still and knowing that God is God is in a not-so-peaceful context. The verses right before it say, “Come, see the glorious works of the LORD: See how he brings destruction upon the world. He causes wars to end throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and snaps the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” – Psalm 46:8-9, NLT

In other words, God conquers. Those who rage against Him fall, and their weapons are completely overwhelmed by His power. And then God speaks this verse that we’re so familiar with: “Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.”

This isn’t the gentle call of an imploring deity. This is the overwhelming command of a conquering ruler.

For those who are among the people God is protecting, this message is greatly comforting. We will ultimately be kept safe.

But for those who reject God, this verse is a challenge and an offense precisely because God is staking His claim to be the ultimate owner and ruler of everything—and the exclamation point on His claim is the threat of crushing and violent destruction.

From the perspective of those who do not believe in our God, this verse is an example of why Christianity is an intolerant and exclusive religion that should not be tolerated. But from the perspective of those of us who do believe in Jesus, this verse is a call to sacrificially do everything we can possibly do to draw people into His kingdom before it is too late for them.

Jesus is God and King. All the world will one day know it. And His reign will have serious consequences: serious threats for His enemies and detractors, but serious freedom and life for those who walk with Him now.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

When Jesus Gets Specific

Today’s Reading:

• 2 Chronicles 29:3-31:21

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• “If you return to the LORD, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.” – 2 Chronicles 30:9, NLT

Thoughts:
Jesus blesses those who put their hope in Him.

It’s one thing to make broad, general promises about how Jesus will care for everyone who trusts in Him. “Make Jesus your hope, and He’ll be with you no matter what you go through.” Promises like that are easy to make and hard to challenge. Even when someone’s been forced to walk through the gates of hell itself, who can say that the promise failed?

But specific promises – that’s another story. “Pray, and Jesus will heal her.” “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and Jesus will still feed and clothe you.” What if Jesus doesn’t heal her? What if you sell, give… and starve? Specific promises are testable. Which is scary. For one thing, what happens to me if I risk everything and lose? For another thing, what does it say about the whole question of God’s existence and trustworthiness and goodness when specific promises fail? Someone who has experienced a failed promise is left in the dust of life to sift through his questions and decide whether it was truly God who failed, or merely a man.

And yet specific promises are very much a part of the Scriptures. And they are used to motivate people (more cynical people might suggest that they’re used to manipulate people) to obedience and conformity.

Here in 2 Chronicles, newly crowned King Hezekiah starts off his reign with a zealous push for religious reform, and he wants everyone to get back on board with him to worship the LORD. He not only urges the people of his country, Judah, to attend the Passover – he sends couriers up into the country of Israel to invite them to the celebration, too!

And his couriers carry promises that are founded in earlier prophecies. If the people will repent of their wickedness and live faithfully for the LORD, God will bring their families back from captivity and oppression. What a promise! What a chance for joy! And what an opportunity for discouragement—if the promise fails.

Some of today’s “ministers” abuse the power of God’s hope-giving promises for personal gain. There are those who take every single promise—at least, every “good” one—written in the Scriptures and apply it to themselves and their followers, even when a promise is clearly intended for a specific Bible character. And there are too many who freely make promises on God’s behalf whether the promises are found in God’s Word or not. Because of the abuses, it is tempting to allow disillusionment to set in and to discard the belief that any of God’s specific promises are for us.

But when we listen to what Jesus says in the Scriptures, we can’t help but discover that some of His promises are meant for us. And rather than just claiming to “believe in Jesus” in general, He asks us to trust Him with His specific promises.

Do we dare?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.