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.