Rules or life to us?

“I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” 

(Deuteronomy 5:6, NIV).

  Is the LORD truly our God?  Do we follow Him as such?  How do we see His commandments to us? How do we as people in general, see the “Ten Commandments?”  Do we see them as life to us or do we see them as stifling rules, to hinder the way we want to life our life? Why do we make it confusing?  Where do we get the idea that rules somehow drain us of life?  It seems we formulate the idea almost innately in our adolescent years.  It is definitely the accepted idea in those years but shouldn’t we leave it behind as we stumble and grow beyond our juvenile mentally? We all struggle with the idea of boundaries giving us life, yet all around us, rules and boundaries protect us and give us life. 

     If we take a few minutes and process the “Commandments” as life giving, they make much more sense.  If we have “No other gods” before us, we have the Lord God, the Creator of all things loving us.  We will have the steadfast love of Heavenly Father with us always and He will never leave or forsakes us.  Does that not give us life?  If do not worship idols fashioned by someone’s ideas or from our own inadequate understanding, how are we hindered?   Instead of following and worshiping something false and ending up with nothing … we are following and worshiping the Living God who gives life and abundance. How is that not life giving?  If we do not misuse the name of our God, we will hold up our God as God and He will be the One we love with all of our heart and soul.

     Is not rest as requested in keeping the “Sabbath,” life giving and sustaining? Do we not need rest every single day to even breathe?  Why would we not need a day each week to give life to our soul?  Without honor, it is hard to have a relationship with anyone much less our parents, who gave us so much throughout our lives.  No adultery means we will have nourishment and blessing in the relationship we have with the dearest person in our lives.  No lying means we will gain and have trust in our interactions and connections with those around us.  If we do not covet, we will be content with what we have and satisfied in the knowledge that security is not found in things acquired.  Is that not life giving? If we do not steal and those around us do not steal means we will living in safety.   Finally, there can be no argument in rule of no murdering which by its very meaning, gives life. In short, all of God’s words to us are full of life as they give us life, including “The Ten Commandments.”

     The final words of Moses after living out all of his days as a prophet, leader and the faithful shepherd of the nation of Israel; remind us that God through His words will give us life. Moses concludes his thoughts by declaring that that God’s words are life to us.  “Take to heart all of the words, I have solemnly declared to you this day … They are not just idle words to you –they are your life …” (Deuteronomy 32:46-47, NIV).   Realize and cherish the words of God, as life ... and they will be life to you ... all the days of your life.

Suggested "Words of Life" to read for today ... Deuteronomy 5

The fire that burns us from within …

“If you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with you still angry—get over it quickly; for when you are angry, you give a mighty foothold to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27, LB).

  It can start from the smallest of things such as simple word, an awkward glance, a slight motion of the eyes, and even from a long distant remembrance of critical remark. It can come from large incidents such as a string of explicit sentences in a castigating rebuke, a demeaning glare meant to dismiss us or our inherent value as a person, a full force movement or some event around us and even from the recollection of a past memory of bitter hurt and trauma. Anger can be triggered in the minutest of moments from slight ill treatment and regard or it can come from the something we read or see.  Anger can also come as a bolt of high powered voltage in response to any interaction, situation or event.

    Anger as an emotion is innate in all of us, as surely as we can be happy. Sometimes anger is positive, for example when anger at injustice; managed and directed leads us to action. Yet anger in each of us: unmanaged, not dealt with, uncontrolled, undirected and not understood, can burn, hurt and endanger us in numerous ways in our business, professional, interpersonal, personal and familial relationships. Anger denied, uncontrolled or unmanaged can stagger, consume and devastate us in the psychological, social, physical and spiritual realms of our functioning and living.

    Our unique personalities and our individual physiologies make some people more susceptible to anger and enable others to release most feeling of anger. Our responses to anger are compounded in each of us by our emotions and physical energies on any given day. The input of each day can trigger flare ups or negate the impulses in each of us to move from the feelings of anger to allowing it to escalate into damage in us or towards others. 

    Anger as an emotion is never denied in the Scriptures but the sin of letting the fire of anger engulf us, entangle us and consume us and the actions coming out of anger are readily condemned. Any intent and any action that would hurt or maim another person is sin.  Any anger left to fester, grow, intensify and rage out of control will burn us from within. We need to understand anger as a fire. Anger like a fire can start from the smallest of sparks. Anger like a fire can burn us from within and if given attention as oxygenated fuel can become a engulfing blaze damaging us and those around us.  The truth is simple; anger comes to all of us, but we should never allow  our anger lead us in the direction of sin.

“This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20, NIV).

Who is with us, is more important than who is coming against us!

“Fear not, for they that are with us are more than they that are with them” (2 Kings 6:16, KJ21). 

  Elisha stood as prophet of God, called out to be a witness of the Living God in a place of countess minor and major other gods. He was called as a prophet and empowered by the Spirit of God. He was given the message of hope and truth from the God of Abraham, Jacob and Moses. Elisha was placed in a nation uninterested, un-attentive and even hostile to his words or his warnings, yet Elisha was faithful, bold and authoritative as God’s messenger.  As one reads of his deeds and senses the assuredness of his faith; there are powerful lessons for all generations about the relationship all followers of God have with an All-Powerful, All-Knowing and Ever-Present Living God.  If we follow our Lord and seek His plans and purposes relying on His Spirit, there is nothing to fear as we will have the truth to see things as they truly are with our Savior by our side. 

    Elisha was not concerned or apprehensive with who or what was coming against him or the nation of Israel.  Whatever things or people that would come against him, Elisha’s faith was not deterred as his authoritative prophetic or purposeful message boldly proclaimed time and time again, the action and provision of the Mighty God who was with him.  His strength was in the Living God and nothing that would come against him was of any consequence. Whether it was ridicule, danger, threats, hardships, famine or even the mightiest armies of the time, Elisha’s focus was always on the God that was with him and never on who or what was coming against him. Time and time again, Elisha believed in the Lord’s provision and stood strong in the face of whatever or whoever came against him. Whatever came against Elisha; including all hardships, problems and even the mighty armies were thwarted and defeated by the infinitely more powerful mighty God who was with Elisha. Elisha was part of many miracles but none of these miracles came about from his power but only through the power of the One, who Elisha had faith in and who was with always with him.

    We worship and live in relationship with the same Living God through Jesus Christ Our Lord and have within us, the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us and empower us.   The Holy Spirit is imparted and is indwelling with us as a seal of our relationship with the Living God (Ephesians 1:14). The Living God in us can do more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20), we just have to trust Him.  We severely limit our faith and severely limit the power of God, when we focus on who or what is coming against us; instead of Who is with us.  All around Elisha, people saw the hardships, difficulties, dangers and armies but Elisha saw only the Mighty God who was with him and the mighty things He would do.  We can do no better than to follow the example of Elisha’s faith in all the days we live out our lives.  For the Living God,  Who with us is more powerful that anything that would come against us.

 “And Elisha prayed and said, ‘Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” 

(2 Kings 6:17, KJ21).

Suggested Reading … 2 Kings 6 & 7

The answer to every need …

“Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me: For I am poor and needy” (Psalm 86:1, NKJV).

  In every situation of need; there is a struggle in the need.  The struggle begins in the need and continues as the need escalates in intensity. As the intensity grows, we look first and foremost for help in the reserves of our mental capacities, emotional strength and in the character of our willful determination and continuing perseverance. Sometimes the need is simply beyond our capacities. If we continue to falter in the need, exhausting our reserves, we may resort to appealing to someone else for direction, encouragement and support.  In our appeals for help with our need as we look to another, we must be certain of our relationship and certain of the capacities of the other in being of able to help us with our need.

     Our families can help us in our need. Our friends can come to our rescue and even strangers can surprise us in their responses to any given situation of need.  Just as easily, our friends and family can fail in our hour of greatest need.  They can be unavailable, disinterested and even inadequate to provide for the assistance that we need in the moment or in our season of need.  Even in the security of the relationships closest to us, we can find great inadequacies and insufficiencies.  We may even scare away the very help we need because of the intensity of our need. 

      There is one source of help for any and every need that stand apart from all others. Our God stands alone as He is always attentive, readily available, full of compassion and understanding, beyond sufficient to answer and to provide strength, comfort and victory in every situation of need.  He alone brings help for every situation of need. He is the Faithful One who hears and the Mighty One who responds with abundant and purposed love answering all of our needs.

      In our need, we come as David, the Psalmist, came to the God, who was his Lord.  We cry as David cried.  We call out to our Lord, as David called out to his Lord. We pray as David prayed and we can be assured of our being heard as David was heard by our God.  We can be comforted as David was comforted. We can be secure as David was secure in both the sufficiency of God’s provision and salvation.  We may live in time far removed from the time of David but our God is the same God, and our Lord is the same Lord.  “For You are great, and do wondrous things; You alone are God” (Psalm 86:10, NKJV).

A prayer adapted from Psalm 86

I seek You and look only to You;  Most Holy and Mighty God. Come close to me and listen to my cries for help. I am in need of You, just now. You alone can do all things and provide for all things.  I am poor and needy but I am yours alone and You are my Precious and Generous Heavenly Father. I trust in You alone for all my needs. Come, O Lord, come again to me in my need. Your forgiveness covers all my sin when I call upon you and Your provision and salvation is wonderful and beyond compare. Comfort me, O Lord, as You answer me through Your Spirit, for great is your mercy, grace and love towards me, through Jesus Christ my Savior and Redeemer. Amen.

Suggested Reading … Psalm 86

Faith travels a vast distance in the moment it believes …

“Everyone was amazed by his gracious words that came from His lips. How can this be? … Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’” (Luke 4:22, NLT).

  How is it possible to be amazed in a moment and to become bitter, cynical or judgmental almost immediately? How is it possible in the very same moment for others to travel from amazement to belief?  This happens in our living as the acceptance or rejection of Christ is played out in our believing or declining to believe in the person of Jesus and the gift of salvation and abiding that He brings.   It is in this quandary, in this crux of the moment where belief teeters in our living and our experience; we stand, seeing and sensing the realms of heavenly through the eyes of our earthy reasoning. It is here, as we choose to believe and to believe again and again that faith lives, sustains and grows. 

    It happens in our acceptance of the Christian faith and it happens in our daily reality as we live out our Christian faith. Faith travels vast distances in the moment, when it first believes. Faith at other times, can find the distance from believing to trusting to overcoming, quite vast and tedious yet faith is beyond sufficient to carry us as we believe and trust.  Faith often travels vast distances each and every time it believes again and again in the face of hardships or difficulties.   Faith travels the vast distance of abandoning the accepted, the seen and the ordinary for the extraordinary, the unseen and the impossible. Our faith must believe all things are possible in the power of our Savior and care of our Shepherd. Faith can joyously and abruptly find delight and truth or faith can move slowly strengthening as it trusts and obeys.  It can be solid and secure and it can be tenuous but always it must believe in the unknown and unseen. 

    This happens as faith accepts the unseen while letting go of the obvious. Faith can quickly clear any hurdle or barrier on the course directly in front of it as it believes and faith can climb directly and purposefully up the roughest and dangerous mountain trail as it trusts and follows through its believing.  Faith as belief comes alive as it  follows in trusting obedience,  the one in whom faith believes. As Christians, our faith is in the Christ that saves and the Christ that abides.  We can do all things through Him as we believe, follow and trust in Him in all of our days.

Jesus Christ stands before us as He stood before the people of His hometown. His proclamation of His being “Good News,” freedom, healing and sight remains as powerful and relevant to us as it was to the people of Nazareth.  There was amazement in that moment so long ago in the synagogue of Nazareth  but most could not believe in who Jesus was; to come into the faith of what He could give. It is now as it was then.  Most may be amazed by Jesus Christ but some will not come into the faith of what He can give.  We must believe in Him for faith to be our life. Whether it is our initial believing or in our believing again and again in who Jesus Christ is and what He can do; our faith comes alive and is of substance and power as we believe. As we believe, our faith in Jesus Christ can travel the vast distance of being more than sufficient in our immediate needs to His doing the impossible in any given moment.  Faith does travel a vast distance in the moment it believes.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19, ESV).

Suggested Scripture reading ... Luke 4

Joy in the Lord ...

Her eyes moistened and the slightest line of a tear traveled down a wrinkle on her cheek.  They were tears full of remembrances that came from a heart tempered with the faithfulness of knowing her blessed Savior.  She was a dear saintly woman of faith.  Her faith was not a faith of the easy blessings or trivial words.  Instead this special lady, who sat in the wheel chair in front of me, radiated an amazing grace in her life-long reliance on Christ’s loving redemption of every part and facet of her life.  The redeeming love of her Savior was her living daily reality. Her faith was a faith of substance and strength.  In any given moment, midst any topic of conversation, a joy seemed to flow from her heart into the room. It was a sustaining joy that had carried her through both good and bad times all the days of her life. 

As she told of her life, it seemed as if she had only experienced a lifetime of hardships. A lifetime of trying to pull a living out of the earth on the Minnesota prairie and the ever present difficulties of health issues and the tragic losses of the ones she had loved. Still, there was a great joy in her words as she spoke of her Savior and Shepherd. In her eyes, in her words and in her recollections flowed a life long joy in her Savior, lived out in the mysteries of belief, trust and obedience.

As we talked about her lifetime, emotion caught in my throat at different times.  It happened as she spoke of outliving her honest son whose heart-felt ethics remained the governing force in his life and in his business.  It happened again as she spoke of having to say “goodbye” to a baby just born many years ago, who would never see the colors of a single day.  It happened again as she spoke of her husband, so strong and good, who she missed, so very much. It happened again as she spoke of her pastors and teachers, who had encouraged her in her faith along the way.  It happened as she spoke of her struggles to regain some of the physical capacities, she had lost from major and minor strokes damaging her daily abilities and functioning.  It did not matter what the subject was or what had happened to this dear woman.  It didn’t matter if we were talking about yesterday or yesteryear. 

Every thought ended in the same way.  She was always thankful for the Savior who is always the same.  He always loved her and he always was there with her.  As I sat alone with the woman of no high position but of remarkable faith; it was easy to sense the presence of the “Joy of the LORD.” Joy is not a word or a phrase.  Joy is not a series of lyrics to a song.  It is not an artificial happiness that fades in heat of the burning difficulties of life.  Joy is deeper. It as deeper than all heartache because it lingers in the searing pain of disappointment to carry us beyond all events and circumstances.  Joy endures and it redeems. Joy anchors us and joy blossoms from the ashes of suffering because it promises new life in the generous love our Heavenly Father will always give to us.  Joy often comes in blessing but joy comes again and again when all we have to hold unto are the promises of an abiding Savior and Shepherd.

 I have long forgotten the name of this precious faithful saint but I will never forget the joy she knew from her Lord that could not be contained in her heart.  Joy overflowed out of her in every word, every line and every thought. Her great joy simply was in her Lord.  He alone was her lifelong and eternal treasure and He alone was her joy.

"For the joy of the LORD is my strength" (Nehemiah 8:10)