Category Archives: Scripture

Be Ready

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dark_countryside_by_themagilla-d4vkqxm

They are up late.

The countryside was dark hours ago, and the chores are complete. On any other night, they would have headed to bed shortly after sunset, but tonight is no average night.

The master is expected to return.  He has sent word, and they will be ready for him.

This imagery is common to several portions of Jesus’ teachings. Luke 12:40 clarifies the point that lies just beyond the scene imagined above: “You must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

Any combination of “Son of Man” and “coming” quickly turn heads toward the end of time, the final coming.

And rightfully so.

However, it dawned on me recently that there is a message that resonates in another way as well.

Just as Christ’s final return is unknown, so too is every move of God.

  • A season of stripping off layers.
  • A time of trial.
  • A green pasture of rest.
  • A wilderness of discipline.
  • An unimagined opportunity.

Such pages of life are not bookmarked in advance. They arrive unannounced, just like the master to his household.  But when they do arrive, the readied heart can open the door to them, confident that the Creator comes with them, that He is eager to dance the upcoming steps with us, to fill us with His life-giving rhythms to the extent that we take His hand and engage with His movements.

But one must be ready.

It is oh-so-easy to live with eyes blinded to anything beyond the immediate, failing to even consider where the Infinite One is seeking to infiltrate our grocery-getting, rugrat-raising, marriage-managing, schedule-surfing lives.

But that’s the importance of being ready.

To tie readiness to Christ’s final coming is to suggest that there is one day when being ill-prepared would be costly.

Truth be told, there is cost in every moment that we press forward with eyes closed and hearts hard to the Constant Companion.

Today as you lay your plans, top the list with this: Be Ready.

Be ready to listen up.

Be ready to speak up.

Be ready to step up.

Your day will not be a rat-race of randomness. Your Master has mixed up its ingredients, and He reveals His presence and plans on His own schedule.

So be ready.

The Road to Blessing

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amen1In the middle of Luke 11, there is an “amen” story.

Preacher Jesus was rocking.

A prayer lesson had just ended, and he had moved on to how demons are defeated. Caught up in provocative power of Jesus’ teachings, a lady listener shouted out.  It wasn’t as “classic” a response as “amen” or even “preach it”. But the sentiment was the same… mostly.

27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Mentions of female anatomy don’t usually accompany the praises of preaching, yet here we have a woman (likely a mother herself) essentially exclaiming, “Your mom is so lucky.”

Said another way: “How fortunate was your mother to birth someone of your substance and quality.”

Or another way: “Hearing your message and seeing your works, it is clear that your mom was pulled into a magnificent life when she conceived and birthed you.”

Yet Jesus sidesteps the remark, countering that the real blessing awaits all who respond obediently to God’s leading and teaching.  In other words, the blessing of God is available to all. It is not pre-portioned and dished out to selected favourites; it is not limited to those in preferential position. Nor is God’s blessing random, as if He were firing blindly into a crowd. Certainly, servants like Mary were approached with unique calls upon them, but the larger point is this: Blessing awaits all who obey.

So to you: Tune your ears today.

Lean in and listen.

The Lord’s word will arrive in some yet unknown tone. It may carry courage or conviction, but it will demand obedience.

And blessing will await all who respond.

Abraham Would Wear a Cross

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nonexpert_dance_waltzScripture displays a dance between the pronounced attributes of God. At least, it appears as a dance to our small eyes, capable of beholding only one thing at a time.

Straining to Step

God’s character is a primary example: He is just as only a Being of burning holiness can be, yet He is kind as only a Being of furious love can exhibit.  Our reach and rhythm find the steps of this dance greatly stretching. How can He be both?

While all of us discover God in real-time, the fact was even more pronounced for Abraham. No Scriptures to study, no preaching to process, he was discovering the substance of Yahweh solely as Yahweh revealed Himself.

The Sodom Study

On the outskirts of Sodom, a city reputed for its wickedness, God revealed to Abraham a side different from the kindness and guidance that had thus far characterized God’s tone. God’s holy justice had determined that Sodom’s time had arrived. The Consuming Fire was about to swallow an entire city.

Abraham proceeded to open negotiations with the Almighty, by “drawing near” and querying, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Gen 18:23)

Torah-3C-AbrahamHe wanted to know how God ticked. Was His sense of justice so tightly wound that it would override what Abraham considered to be reasonable, percentage-based standards of grace?

“Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?”

And on the auction went, with Abraham bowing out of the bidding once Yahweh had agreed that He would spare the entire city if He found ten righteous people.

The Twist

Abraham was concerned that God’s holy justice burned so hot that an innocent few might suffer alongside the guilty masses.  But Yahweh flips it over and reveals that He is actually so gracious toward His faithful ones that He will allow rampant sin to go unpunished.

Said another way, Abraham feared that God was a sniper so eager to pull the trigger that innocent victims would be struck down. God displays a shocking willingness to let evil have its day in exchange for the safety of His people.

Abraham Would Wear a Cross

wooden-cross-weatheredIf Abraham were alive today, he would wear a cross around his neck. He would have to. What other ornament can even begin to capture this concept, this intimate interaction of perfect justice tempered by lavish love?

Jesus’ disciples approached from the opposite road to Abraham; they were eager to see fireworks. Let Rome burn!  Smite the Samaritans!  Humble Herod!  Bring the biggest cup you have, and pour down the judgment.

And God obliges.

In fact, He brings a larger vessel of venom than they could have imagined. His view encompasses the collective evil of humanity back to Eden. Horror movies and nightmares could not compete with the content of that cup.

And He unloaded His appropriated anger, dropping it like an atom bomb on a cross-beamed and convicted criminal.  Then He dared to tell us that love was at the center of the carnage–grace at its gutsiest.  Oh to be sure, there would be justice, swift and sweeping. Every evil would be exorcised, and wailing would ensue.  But the entire execution of justice would serve as a stay of execution for the guilty.

Jesus paid it all.
All to him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow.

No doubt in my mind, Abraham would have worn a cross.  And as he wore it, he would have marveled. He might have recalled the most grievous days of his life, as he walked his son Isaac toward Mount Moriah. Willing to display his faithfulness to a God who appeared to making nonsensical requests, Abraham was pushed to the brink before a bleating broke the tension.

“God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” Father had declared that to son. If Abraham were with us today, wearing that cross, he would stroke it as a treasure from another universe. And he would marvel at the prophetic nature of his Moriah-message.

Had Abraham’s sacrifice been carried out, it would have displayed his allegiance to an unseen Deity. But God’s son-sacrifice has been carried out, as an exhibition of His allegiance to people who lack all ability to dance with Him.

 

 

Five Ways to Suck at Reading Your Bible

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Thomas Edison QuoteA familiar line from Thomas Edison frames failure with unfamiliar brightness: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

It embarrasses me that it has taken me years to establish a regular Scripture reading habit. But in the spirit of Edison, here are five surefire ways to failure that I discovered along the way:

1) Don’t Have a Plan.
The amount of mental energy saved by following an already-established reading schedule is unreal. Such a plan allows me to quickly jump in to the task at hand without clearing any additional hurdles on a daily basis because if I have to clear additional hurdles on a daily basis, I’m not even stepping on the track. If you are in desperate need of a varied and reasonably paced reading schedule, here is the one I use; it has me on course to read my Bible through every three years. If you want to avoid reading your Bible, plan to figure out what to read each day when the moment arrives–that failure method is foolproof.

2) Do It at Bedtime.
“I am not a morning person.” That was my chorus for many years, particularly during my student days, when late-night studying was a regular rhythm. Then my conscience would awake at bedtime to remind me of my missed Bible readings. Additionally, the idea of falling asleep with Scripture as my final thoughts of the day was somewhat romantic. The less romantic reality was that I typically failed to get through a paragraph before my eyes closed up shop. We can argue about being a morning person or not in another post. For the moment, consider every option better than reading in a horizontal position at the end of a hard day: while you eat breakfast, on the bus to school, during morning coffee break, as you grab lunch, first thing after you tuck in your kids. If deep down, you really don’t want to read your Bible, do it at bedtime. And you won’t!

3) Seek the Check Mark.
How much pleasure do you derive from checking off at item on your to do list? Have you ever done something that wasn’t on your list, and then written it on your list after the fact so that you could place a check mark beside it? I know someone who has. However, all the check marks in the world can actually work to undercut the value of a solid Bible reading habit. You might getting to it, but is it getting to you? Tell your duty-driven self to submit itself before the Scriptures being reading. View the exercise as a time dedicated to God getting His hands on your heart, rather than you getting your hands on His book. But if the only mark you want left from the habit is checks upon your list, then treat Bible-reading as something akin to washing the floor or changing the oil. You will get exactly what you are seeking–the thrill of inking a check mark.

4) Settle for Silence.
Silent reading engages the eyes and the mind. And sometimes it fails to do even that much. At times, I’ve added my ears to the game by listening to an audio Bible. Max McLean is among my favourite readers–he can be heard on BibleGateway’s website, reading the ESV along with a few other translations. However, after a time, I realized that I was still under-engaged in the act. His soothing voice had become background noise as my eyes grazed over the text. Next move? Read it aloud with my own voice. This now engages my eyes, ears, and mouth. And it is that final component–my mouth determining the tone and emphasis to read with as I press the text through my lips–that engages my mind on a deeper level still. But if you want to struggle to interact with the text, or even to remember it an hour later, stay in the silence.

5) Keep Moving Regardless.If you have a plan in action (see #1), and you enjoy checking it off each day (see #3), then one corrective measure may be needed. In “Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ,” Madame Guyon likened Scripture-reading to a bee buzzing over flowers. At some point, he finds what he’s looking for and stops to plunge himself into it. If your Scripture habit is driven by a recognized need to connect with God and hear from Him, then pay more attention to your reading than to your reading list. What if the second verse of your chapter is where your heart needs to linger? Guyon would say, “Scrap the rest of your plan, and linger.” To keep reading is to risk losing the glorious revelation that most of bemoan as lacking in our Bible readings. Don’t allow your sense of duty (I should really finish the whole passage) to undercut the entire purpose of your habit: To connect with God. If God shows up ready to teach, clear your schedule… starting with the rest of today’s reading. Or to minimize the impact of your Scripture habits, keep trucking blindly.

YOUR TURN: What about you? Have you discovered any other paths to surefire failure in your Bible readings?  Your input makes this post better!

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Return to Me

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Today’s reading in my Lenten devotional contained this oh-so-basic but oh-so-vital truth. It is precisely relevant to the season of Lent but generally applicable to the whole pursuit of God:

The very first Scripture reading of the Lenten season is from the prophet Joel. In it, God declares “return to me with your whole heart” (2:12). The purpose of Lent is not purification and penance for their own sakes, but in order to return to God, and re-establish the relationship with Him that we once had (or to establish the relationship we are called to have).

How forgetful I can be.  No act considered spiritual is to be undertaken for any motivation beneath “returning to God with one’s whole heart”, yet how easy it is to be driven by the lesser desire to “measure up” or appear impressive, to others or ourselves.

This is one of the killers of spiritual life, sold to us by religion and rebellion alike. Lent leads such ego to the gallows. And when the noose tightens, our souls will be on the verge of entering life, perhaps for the first time.

For those with music as a primary language (perhaps all of us!), Gungor’s song “We Will Run” has always struck my ears and heart as particularly powerful in this simple call. An abbreviated version is below for any who need a “Gungor orientation” this morning.