Prove It…Again

Today’s Reading:

• Luke 8:1-3; Mark 3:20-30; Matthew 12:22-45; Mark 3:31-35; Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21; Mark 4:1-9; Matthew 13:1-9; Luke 8:4-8; Mark 4:10-20

Verse(s) to Ponder:

• One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.” But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.” – Matthew 12:38-39, New Living Translation

Thoughts:
In the face of Jesus’ goodness, in the face of the wisdom and morality of His teachings, opponents still came and demanded that He perform a miracle to convince them that He was genuinely here as God’s representative.

It’s not as if they hadn’t been able to witness any of His other miracles already. And they had certainly heard His teachings. He wasn’t hiding anything.

No wonder Jesus called them out. No wonder he said that their hearts were evil and adulterous—that their inclination was to be unfaithful to their God.

And yet He still gave them a sign. The sign of Jonah—that is, the sign of His own death and resurrection.

How many of them responded to His sign? How many of us are just the same as they were, rejecting Jesus despite everything He’s done and demanding another sign?

Note: I have obviously been less than consistent about posting devotional thoughts for a while now, so I’m not going to claim that I’ll be consistent for the next few months, or that the blog will be centered around a certain theme (it was supposed to deal with faith-stretching verses this year). I just hope that these thoughts are still an encouragement to you, whenever they come your way.

Hope on Judgment Day

Today’s Reading:

• Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-17; Matthew 11:1-19; Luke 7:18-35; Matthew 11:20-30; Luke 7:36-50

Verse(s) to Ponder:

• Then Jesus began to denounce the towns where he had done so many of his miracles, because they hadn’t repented of their sins and turned to God. “What sorrow awaits you, Korazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show remorse. I tell you, Tyre and Sidon will be better off on judgment day than you.” Matthew 11:20-22, New Living Translation

Thoughts:

Is God unfair?

Some people are born into Christian communities and hear God’s Word from a young age; others are born into communities that worship false gods. When Judgment Day comes, will God punish the people who had little to no chance to hear about Him just because of their circumstances?

All around the world, some people get to experience God’s miracles and some see visions sent from heaven; others feel like they would like to believe in God, but because they have never experienced this kind of evidence, they aren’t convinced that any of the stories about miracles and visions are true. No one they know has ever seen anything truly miraculous. When Judgment Day comes, will God judge the people who never saw a miracle on the same standards as those who did, as though they had the same opportunity to understand His wonderful nature?

No. Not according to what Jesus says in Matthew 11:20-22.

Jesus performed a number of miracles in some places, and yet many of the people who experienced His miracles did not renounce their sins and turn to God. I can’t even comprehend why they would not have responded to Jesus after seeing His miracles, but they didn’t (which is a sobering reminder that our hearts are more rebellious than we would like to admit, and that even those of us who claim that we would believe in Jesus if He would only give us more evidence may be deceiving ourselves). And Jesus compares them to others, essentially saying that they have been given an advantage and have done nothing with it.

But what about all the places where Jesus performed no miracles? Jesus says that they will be better off on Judgment Day. How much better off? I don’t know for sure. But this gives me a lot of hope for people who respond to whatever evidence God has placed in their lives and follow Jesus to the extent that they know about Him. Why does this give me hope for them? It gives me hope for them because Jesus didn’t have to perform miracles in other places to know how they would have responded. Jesus knows people’s hearts well enough for His knowledge of our hearts’ responses and their “would have responded if” responses to be taken into account on Judgment Day.

So how does this change anything for me? Actions-wise, it doesn’t. I need to be a faithful witness, no matter what. I can’t just sit back and avoid witnessing “because I know that Jesus is fair and trust that He knows who would have believed in Him if they had heard.” Too many passages in His Word remind us that our responsibility to introduce people to Jesus is a serious responsibility with serious consequences for the people around us. But on the other hand, I can walk through life with hope for the people who seem to be the most disadvantaged when it comes to opportunities to know Jesus. Jesus knows their circumstances, and He knows their hearts, and on Judgment Day, it’s going to make a difference for them.

And I can trust Him to do what’s right. I love hope.

Note: I have obviously been less than consistent about posting devotional thoughts for a while now, so I’m not going to claim that I’ll be consistent for the next few months, or that the blog will be centered around a certain theme (it was supposed to deal with faith-stretching verses this year). I just hope that these thoughts are still an encouragement to you, whenever they come your way.

Kids’ Persistent Questions

Today’s Reading:

• Matthew 6:5-7:6; Luke 6:37-42; Matthew 7:7-20; Luke 6:43-45; Matthew 7:21-29; Luke 6:46-49

Verse(s) to Ponder:

• Keep on asking, and you will received what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.… You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. – Matthew 7:7, 9-11, New Living Translation

Thoughts:
I was just thinking today about the connection between persistent prayer and praying to a Heavenly Father.

As a human father, sometimes I wish that my children wouldn’t ask so persistently. My son Michael is really, really eager to visit the Discovery Place (and we’ve already been there several times, so his experience gives him a lot of motivation to return). And he will ask me, “Dad, can we go to the Discovery Place?”

So I’ll say, “Yes, Michael, we can go.”

And he asks an important question: “When, dad?”

It usually takes me a minute to decide when I would like to take him to visit the Discovery Place, but the answer often ends up being something like, “We’ll go there next week on Thursday.”

You would think that I’d get a huge cheer right then! After all, I have just told Michael not only that we’ll go to the Discovery Place, but I’ve committed myself to a set date. I can’t postpone it beyond then without breaking my word (and I am very reluctant to do that).

But Michael is usually not very happy with an answer like that. “Yes” isn’t enough. “Next Thursday” isn’t enough. He wants to go NOW. And what that usually means is that for the next week, he keeps asking me over and over and over, “Dad, can we go to the Discovery Place? Can we go now?”

As I said, being a human father, this isn’t the most pleasant experience in the world for me. I can become a bit impatient… not that anyone else would know what I’m talking about, right? I’ve given my son an answer, I’ve given him the promise of a good gift, and I’ve given him a specific time when he can expect to receive it. Sometimes I wish he would just trust me and wait patiently.

A lot of the things we ask God for are things that He has said “Yes” to, also. Health. Wisdom. Character. Safety. And He has told us when we can expect to have them in their fullness—when Jesus comes back. Sometimes He gives us an early taste of them, too. But often, He asks us to wait.

Somehow, that doesn’t do much to satisfy our desires. We want those good gifts from God, and we want to experience them—fully—now. And so we ask, and we keep on asking. And we knock, and keep on knocking. And God keeps telling us, as we read His Word, “Yes, when Jesus comes back.” And we keep begging Him, “How about today? How about now?”

The really amazing thing to me is this: through Jesus, God encourages us to keep begging and asking. God is better with His children than I am with my son. He not only knows how to give good gifts, but God is patient and understanding toward His children’s repeated requests. He loves to hear them! He wants to have the opportunity to tell all of us—not just me, but you, too—to tell all of us a big, wonderful “Yes” over and over again. Through His “Yes,” God reminds us that He loves us. As He reminds us of His plan to fulfill every promise through Jesus, God thrills at the opportunity to fill our minds and hearts with His love again. And so He loves to hear us ask for His good gifts, not just once, but repeatedly. Every time we ask, we give Him another opportunity to joyfully remind us of His loving plans.

Note: I have obviously been less than consistent about posting devotional thoughts for a while now, so I’m not going to claim that I’ll be consistent for the next few months, or that the blog will be centered around a certain theme (it was supposed to deal with faith-stretching verses this year). I just hope that these thoughts are still an encouragement to you, whenever they come your way.

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.