Our Spoken Words

Jesus is synonymous with his words because he acted out everything he said. His words were so much the truth that there is no difference between what he said and who he is. There’s not one promise unfulfilled, not one retraction, not a boast or uncontrolled outburst. We all know (and sometimes we are) someone who is NOT who he or she says. Either through promises broken, falsehoods spoken, or harshness and haste, we fall far short of what we profess. Jesus prayed for you and me when he said:

. . . I have given them the words that you gave me . . . I am praying for them . . . Holy Father . . . Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth . . . – from John 17: 8-17

We have the words (the WORD, the Bible) that Jesus gave us. With them we are, in fact, equipped to live out the blessing Jesus prayed over us. When we speak the truth of God’s word over the people and situations in our lives, we see real change. We can speak Bible truth to God in prayer, and we can speak it to our troubles. Jesus said:

"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” – Matt. 18:18

Jesus even gave us the awesome power and responsibility to forgive, which has a whole lot more to do with what we say in our hearts and with our mouths than it does with how we feel:

"If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." - John 20:23

Jesus gave us power to bind, to loose, to bless, and to forgive. May we receive the Holy Spirit power today to exercise our authority in Christ over the words that come out of our mouths, as well as our mental talk. Instead of the disappointment of speaking out of turn, may we see the fruit of words well-spoken. Let's agree with what God himself says about his word:

. . . I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure . . ." - from Isaiah 46:9-10

Even to life-and-death extremes, may we insist upon speaking God's truth:

. . . God . . . gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. – from Romans 4:17

Let's pledge to speak life today!

No Ambiguous Effect

The Lord's word has an equal and opposite effect on us, depending upon how it is received. Jesus says to his followers:

Already you are clean

because of the word that I have spoken to you. - John 15:3

Later, he speaks of those who reject him:

If I had not come and spoken to them,

they would not have been guilty of sin,

but now they have no excuse for their sin.

- John 15:22

Our response to God's word determines its effect on us. Either we honor God's word or we do not. Both responses cause a profound effect on our lives. We have two alternatives: clean or dirty, innocent or guilty, with no ambiguous grey area between the two extremes.

In last Friday's Old Testament section, we see Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, as he fluctuates between the two extremes. For the most part King Jehoshaphat does things God's way in government, and causes a lot of good things to happen for his nation. Yet he stumbles, going into battle as an ally of evil.

Christians today suffer the same conflict; for the most part we honor God's word with a willing heart, yet at times we may act in direct and willful contradiction to what the Bible says. I pray you and I will have the grace today to respond with a willing heart to the word of the Lord, so that we'll stand before him clean and innocent.

ALL WE CAN DO

What a contradiction in terms, “All we can do is . . . pray,” or “God is . . . all we’ve got.” God allows us to be put in in the painful position where our only option is to cry out to him, and it's for our own good! Then he can show us "all we've got," and the power of "all we can do."

In yesterday's reading, King Abijah of Judah was forced to call upon God to rescue him from an attacking enemy that outnumbered his men two-to-one. Judah was surrounded, and the outcome would have been sure defeat and total annihilation, if not for the presence and power of God:

. . . the men of Judah prevailed, because they relied on the LORD . . . – from 2 Chronicles 13:18

King Asa of Judah had the presence of mind to send an SOS to God in the heat of battle, at the moment when he and his people were attacked, embattled, and outnumbered against a raging enemy. He stood in the middle of conflict and verbalized his trust:

. . . O LORD, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, you are our God; let not man prevail against you. – from 2 Chron. 14:11

Not surprisingly, there was triumph that day for Judah, yet how quickly people tend to forget the source of hope and deliverance! Even in the afterglow of great victory, God sent the prophet Azariah with a pointed reminder:

The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. – 2 Chron. 15:2

Asa took the prophet’s warning seriously, and took immediate action to remove the objects of adoration to false gods found throughout the land. Afterward, Asa called the people together to express his intention that all his people should earnestly seek and follow God, and his leadership caused a nationwide reformation:

. . . [the people of Judah] entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul . . . – from 2 Chron. 15:12

For several decades there was rest and peace for Judah, but when the next trial came, their king forgot who to trust! When battle threatened once again, Asa called upon an allied nation to help him against his enemy. That seemed to work out fine at the time, but in truth Asa lost far more than he gained. God sent word to this proud leader:

. . . "Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD, he gave them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars." – from 2 Chron. 16:7-9

How sad that from that time on, Judah had no rest from conflict, and their leader never again humbled himself before God. In our New Testament portion, Jesus encouraged his followers to have rest from conflict and to consciously trust in him, on the eve of the battle of their lives:

Peace I leave with you; MY PEACE I give to you. NOT as the world gives do I give to you. – John 14:27 (emphasis mine)

Jesus made a fine point of the difference between the peace he offers and the peace the world can give. Let us not accept the peace this world offers in exchange for the peace that comes from God! Often in a crisis we forget God, and try to solve our own problems. Let us make a conscious effort to remember what a blessing it is when “all we can do is pray,” and “God is all we’ve got.”

Lord, save us from our own solutions, and help us remember YOU in a crisis! Thank you for the trouble that trains us to turn to you. Lord, help us remember that our answers, though they may provide immediate relief, will hurt us in the long term. Give us power to stay true to our calling today, and give us grace in our moments of distress to turn to you, our only true source of hope and help. In Jesus name, AMEN.

SPIRITUAL SEEING

Jesus created quite a controversy when he opened a blind man’s eyes on the one day of the week when work (even “good” work) was forbidden. Jesus repeatedly broke the rules: he worked up some mud, worked to plaster it on the blind man’s eyelids, and then instigated the blind man to work washing the mud off. Oh, and one minor detail: after all that work, THE MAN COULD SEE!

The man who was healed took a lot of heat from “church establishment” for what Jesus did in his life. The Pharisees objected because of the broken rules. Instead of celebrating the miracle of the man’s newfound sight – hallelujah! – their reaction was to throw the guy out of the synagogue in disgrace. Afterward, Jesus found him and explained:

“For judgment I came into this world,

that those who do not see may see,

and those who see

may become blind.”

– John 9:39

Yikes! Lord, please let me be one who sees! I don’t want to insist that I see and then find I’m the one who is truly blind in every sense that matters. Please help me to resist the temptation of thinking I have all the answers. Help me to humble myself before you today, that I may receive your healing touch and the sight you bestow when I’m wise enough to admit I am blind and helpless before you.

Offerings to Nehushtan

God commanded the making of the bronze serpent which Hezekiah later, quite rightly, destroyed. At the time of its making, Nehushtan effectively brought God's people back to him, yet later generations came to revere the monument instead of honoring God:

And [Hezekiah] broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it(it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel . . . from 2 Kings 18:4-5

Do we make mountains of a molehills when when we cling to tradition? Do we create monuments which have nothing to do with serving the living God? What are we really after when we go to church?

We hear Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (John 6:26) Jesus proclaimed himself the bread of life and yet:

. . . the Jews grumbled about Jesus, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” - from John 6:41-42

Let's avoid placing more importance in the trappings of "proper" worship then on the One we worship. Let's not run the risk of grumbling that "it's only Jesus," when . . . well, it REALLY IS only Jesus! He is it: the only glue that can bind us together, the only source of true change, the only One who can heal our brokenness, the only giver of the bread of life.

I pray the Lord will give you power today to look past the Nehushtan to see and honor Him. I pray you and I will look beyond our needs, and honor the Jesus -- whether our tummies are filled or not. Let us break in pieces anything of beauty and honor that sets itself up between us and true reverence to Jesus Christ.

(From the reading for Sunday, May 17)

COP-OUT OBEDIENCE

As children we are taught that obedience is a good thing, and for little ones that is almost always the case. Obedience to "authority" can be a cop-out, however, if it is in contradiction to God's specific instructions. I Kings 13:1-24 tells the sad account of a prophet and his reward. A young man was sent by God to deliver a specific message to the king of Israel, but his job did not end there. God warned him to go away hungry, along an unfamiliar path . . . and he did everything God instructed him to do, almost!

This young prophet had no trouble following his instructions until he was challenged by a peer, a man of God like himself (re-read verses 11-18). That's when he lost his way! The man who challenged the young prophet's direction was an older (and surely wiser) prophet, who spoke with the voice of experience. The young man must have felt it was safe to defer to him, but he paid dearly for substituting obedience to "authority" for true obedience to God. It was a cop-out, and a fatal misstep.

It is hard to imagine why this happened, or what could have motivated the older prophet to lead the younger man astray, but Wednesday's reading is speaking to my heart today: there is no substitute for direct obedience to God's word! No matter how convenient it may seem for me to "fall in line" and unquestioningly follow God's order of authority, whether in the church or in my home, I am first and always accountable to honor the principles laid out in the Bible. I must measure all human authority against the specific instructions and guiding principles of God's word.

This is my prayer for you:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left,

your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,

"This is the way; walk in it." - Isaiah 30:21

GOOD P.R. for GOD

We Christians are involved in public relations, whether we know it or not. Last Saturday's reading shows the difference between good and bad PR for God's kingdom. We see that Hiram, the king of Sidon, though he was not "a believer," still he blessed God because of the conduct and bearing of his neighbor, King Solomon of Israel:

As soon as Hiram heard the words

of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly and said,

“Blessed be the Lord this day, who has given to David

a wise son to be over this great people.”

- 1 Kings 5:7

King Solomon's conduct in business and acumen toward his peer showed not only that he was a formidable force in his world, but that he honored God in word and in deed. How do we inspire the non-believers around us? Do we cause them to bless the Lord by our conduct in our day-to-day affairs?

What a contrast we see in the New Testament reading! What must Gov. Pilate have thought of the people of God as they stirred up an ugly commotion over an innocent man?

. . . they began to accuse him, saying,

“We found this man misleading our nation

and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying

that he himself is Christ, a king.” 3 And Pilate asked him,

“Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him,

“You have said so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests

and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.”

- from Luke 23: 3-4

How did these false accusations make the Jews look to their neighbors in the community? We modern followers of Christ need to be aware that the testimony of God's people hinges on the attitudes and actions of individual Christians in the community at large. Do we inspire people to bless the Lord, or do they shake their heads and wonder how we could be so unreasonable, unprofessional, or downright ugly?

I pray that today (and always) the Lord will make us conscious of our influence for his kingdom -- whether for bad or for good. I pray we'll be blessed with the vision and the power to influence our neighbors for GOOD in our day-to-day public relations. May we honor Jesus in all we say and do today. AMEN.