One Nation Under God

John the Baptist is beheaded because he spoke God’s truth in trying to hold a king accountable to God’s law. The taking of one’s sister in law as one’s wife was not lawful. But even so, the king’s was accountable to God. This accountability existed because King Herod posed himself to be the king of the Jews. Regardless of the fact that he was a puppet of Rome, he was still accountable to God.
King Herod did not like being held accountable but feared God enough not to take action against this critic. But his wife was embarrassed with this public criticism. So she put her husband the king in a compromising situation by inciting seductive incestuous lust after their daughter. By promising the King an eye candy show of strip tease, the daughter got the king to promise to give her anything. At the time the king did not know that meant the head of the prophet John the Baptist.
When the strip tease was over the prophet’s head was delivered. The king must have thought that his headache criticism of the annoying prophet was finally silenced. But then came Jesus. Jesus did not criticize the king directly, but was famed to have accomplished many of the miracles with which John the Baptist was also associated. With the previous thought by the Pharisees that eternal life was achievable through reincarnation, one can see why the king might have thought that John the Baptist had been reincarnated in Jesus. In the Bible:
(Mark 6:14-28 NRSV) King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” {15} But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” {16} But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” {17} For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. {18} For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” {19} And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, {20} for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. {21} But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. {22} When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” {23} And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” {24} She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” {25} Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” {26} The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. {27} Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, {28} brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother.
The king’s speculation that John the Baptist had been reincarnated gives evidence to the fact that ideas cannot die. The idea that God is right and it doesn’t matter how much money you have, what position you have, or any source of power of authority exists – nothing can be conceived on earth that can stop the truth of God. As long as we claim to be “One Nation under God,” we stand in judgment as well. There will be an accounting over people who are too hopeless or lazy to vote. There will be an accounting over a congress that is so mired in self interest and partisan politics to do what is best for the country. There will be an accounting over our standing as a world power, as our credibility is eroded due to our lack of integrity.
People may die but ideas do not; this is particularly true when those ideas are from the heart of God. God has been playing this game for thousands of years, and one thing that history and the scriptures teaches us is that there is no death of ideas that come from God. In a word, this is “providence.” The ideas I speak of are the morals and character that call us to make the difficult choices in life. And yes, we suffer for those choices. We suffer at the hand of this worldly order. To do the right thing may cost us financially and in popularity. The stress of such seems overwhelming unless we invest our esteem and provision in God and God alone. Do we care more about living in a big home or giving the money that the kingdom of God needs? Do we care more about satisfying our lusts rather than being lied about because we chose not to participate in some drama that would compromise our character? Do we speak the truth in love because it is what God would have us to do even with that risks our rejection by others, or do we hide behind social propriety?
Regardless of how our government excuses itself or whether or not our elected officials profess Christianity as their faith, they are accountable. Just as this accountability existed because King Heard posed himself to be the king of the Jews. Our nation, its people, and our government are accountable regardless of what faith they claim because we are “One Nation under God.” Even if the certain government officials are puppets of special interest groups and lobbyists, they are as accountable as King Heard was.
Dear Lord:
I pray for our nation. I pray that the United States of America not forget it’s faith origins and will reclaim our God ordained character. Help us make the tough decisions for the best of what God is calling us to. Help us to be that One Nation under God.

Wrestle for a Blessing

Monday, January 16, 2012

SCRIPTURE

(Genesis 32:24-31 NIV) {24} So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. {25} When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. {26} Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” {27} The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. {28} Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” {29} Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. {30} So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” {31} The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

OBSERVATION

Has it ever been said of you that you do things the hard way.  Well then you and Jacob have a lot in common.  All of us struggle with others and as it pertains to working out God’s will for our lives and we struggle with God as well.  In this passage Jacob wrestles with an angel in order to secure a blessing.  He not only gets a blessing he gets a new identity and more than he bargained for.

Once he had given all of his possessions to his brother this man shows up.  Jacob wrestles with him and strives until the angle opponent blesses him.  The blessing involved changing Jacob’s name to Israel.  Somehow this name change reflected the fact that Jacob had struggled with men and God and have overcome.

The touch of God can bring both blessing and lasting personal painful consequences.  This experience left Jacob with a limp.  The touch of God can be painful.  The touch of God particularly when you are wrestling with him can bring a change of identity.  Maybe you can note how the touch of God left you different.

Jacob’s goal in mind was to secure a blessing.  He got more than he bargained for.  He got a blessing and a new identity.

PRAYER

Dear Father:

Help us see the value in the blessing we wrestle from You so that the limp will not be an annoyance but a reminder of the new identity we have in You.

Courage to Hope

I recall a sleep study I did several years back and I inquired of the technician about her belief in God. She said it was so much superstition and imagination that she was not going to be duped into believing in a fantasy. Well I felt somewhat confident in dealing with agnostics but such blatant atheism was not something I felt confident to address in the time it took to hook up the wires and prepare me for bed. After years of reflection on that interchange that went nowhere evangelistically I thought that she must not have ever experienced a miracle of God. But then they are so evident everywhere that I thought that impossible. Maybe she failed to recognize the miracles of God that are all around us. Paul mentions in his letter to the Romans.
Romans 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
In this letter Paul talks about how nature itself witness to God and therefore no one has any excuse.
There are miracles everywhere for us to see if we but look. Miracles are everywhere like in how people whom we annoy stay around and love us anyway. Miracles like hope that gets born anew following disappointment after disappointment. Hope is such an important thing to have. Without out hope there is no faith.
As we face a new year there have been disappointments. We have been hurt. We have been let down and let ourselves down. In the face of almost certain disappointment again where do we find the courage to hope again? It must be the unending grace of God. We can find the courage to hope again because God continues to invite us again and again to His grace. God invites us at the communion table. God invites us again with forgiveness. God invites us again back to His path of righteousness. God mentions grace over 1200 times in the (RSV). Who are we not to hope? God knows we are discouraged. God knows our hearts are still healing. God knows that any path to holiness must be a path that begins in the human heart and that takes hope.

What is the Measure of Our Days?

Ps 39:4–5
“O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

Our time here is short.  We have a specific number of days we are to live, and they are not many.  The Psalmist here pleads with God to show him how fleeting his life is, and how short his days are.  The question for us, is not how many days we have, nor whether we’re going to use them for His glory (of course!), but the question is how dense we will cause them to be.

This world is about as distracting and detracting from God as He has allowed Satan to make it.  Our lives are filled with a never-ending source of distractions and time-leeches.  After a stressful day of work, who doesn’t want to sit down in front of the TV for an hour, or grab a game controller for a bit?  Or how about a phone, or even a rake?  All things are ours to enjoy, since we as sons of God have inherited the whole earth, but on the other hand, anything we do can become a time-sin, if it keeps us out of communion with God.

Is there any one of us, having died and looking down on how they spent their years, who will not wish they had not done more?  When we look our Savior in the face, and enter into eternal glory, will we not wish we had spent fewer hours in front of the TV, and more of them in the prayer closet and in the Word?  Let us spend some time each week then, and even each day, to consider how our use of the Lord’s time has brought glory to Him – for that should be, and should always remain, our whole aim.

One of Johnathan Edwards’ resolutions, which he reviewed weekly, was “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.“  May that be our weekly prayer, as we minister to the community of Cedar Rapids.

Worry & Faith

This devotion is written in the “SOAP” format.

SCRIPTURE

Philippians 4:6-9 NIV
⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

 ⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

OBSERVATION

Tell God everything and thank him for all he has done.

• Give it to God in prayer
• Express Thanksgiving (This is how you experience a peace that passes understanding and protect your heart.)
• Focus/Meditate on good stuff

APPLICATION

People, who worry, do not pray enough.  They need to learn how to pray with thanksgiving.  Worry is the opposite of the peace of God.  We speak about giving it to God.  This is a matter of trusting God to work out His will in a situation one is worried about.  Trust is hard.  We tend not to leave whatever we place in God’s hands alone because of a lack of trust.  Yes, but where does that distrust come from? 

The next instruction of Paul gives us a hint of where the distrust comes.  The lack of trust comes because we do not remember how God has been faithful in the past.  That is why the second instruction is to express thanksgiving for all God has done.  In order to leave whatever is troubling us in God’s hands we need to thank God for how He has proven himself trustworthy with our worries in the past.  Then and only then is our peace secure and God guards our hearts and minds. 

Even beyond learning how to give thanks we need to be intentional about focusing on good stuff.  Good stuff like truth, honor, rightness, purity, whatever is lovely or admirable anything excellent or worthy of praise.

PRAYER

        Dear Lord:

Help me to walk in such peace of mind.

Generosity and Outreach

This devotion is written in the “SOAP” format.

SCRIPTURE

2 Corinthians 9:6-15 NIV
⁶ Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

⁸ And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written: “He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” ¹⁰ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. ¹² This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³ Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.¹⁴ And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

OBSERVATION

After laying a foundation for planned and organized giving Paul speaks about an indescribable gift in “grace”.  He relates grace to provision and wealth.

If God supplies man with the seed needed to produce a harvest of grain, and thus food he certainly will supply and multiply all the resources  needed to produce a full harvest of good deeds.

God continues to enrich the benevolent person so that he can go on enriching others by his generosity. The greater the giving, the greater the enrichment. The greater the enrichment, the greater the resources to give. Then the Jerusalem saints, as the grateful recipients of the Corinthians’ liberal gift administered by Paul and his colleagues, would express their thanks to God, the source of all good gifts. Liberality is thus seen to be a gracious act that prompts thanksgiving to God.

2 Cor. 9:14 There are still other results of generosity. Paul is convinced the giving will be reciprocal. The Jerusalem believers will receive material benefits and in return will dispense the spiritual blessing of intercession for the Corinthians.  As they pray, they will recall “the surpassing grace” imparted to the Corinthians by God and evident in their sacrificial liberality; as a result, their hearts will be warmed towards those at Corinth and they will long to see them and enjoy a closer relation with them.

2 Cor 9:15 Since the gift is said to be given by God and beyond adequate human description, it must refer secondarily to the surpassing grace that God imparts and primarily to the Father’s gift of the Son.

APPLICATION

        Paul suggests that giving has a reciprocal effect when we give in such a way as to produce:

1. Generosity in the recipients
2. Thanksgiving in prayers
3. God’s blessing in provision
4. Spiritual blessing to the recipients
5. Generate praise to God for our obedience to the confession of faith we have in Jesus.

        This is the basis for our outreach.  Server others so that the community is grateful that we are in the community.

PRAYER

        Dear Lord:

Thank you for the wisdom that starts with generosity.

Work Out Your Salvation… But Let God Do the Hard Part

Philippians 2:12-13  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,  for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Two verses rarely excite such a range of emotion in me, as the two quoted above.  Paul begins soberly by exhorting us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.  This is a hard thing.  In fact, at first glance it sounds a little like what legalists are faulted with doing; isn’t it wrong for us to attempt to work out our own salvation?  Isn’t our salvation resolved already, since we’re in the palm of God’s hand, where no one can pluck us out?

But this call for working out our salvation comes after a plea for a deep humility in the church.  Paul is telling us that the process by which we “work out,” or express, our salvation is a sober thing, and should be done from the mindset of deep humility.

Then Paul swings back from sober exhortation to joyful encouragement.  He tells us it is God who does the work in us, giving us both the desire to work, and through His Holy Spirit does the very work itself.  It’s like He’s saying “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you there – I know you can’t work out your own salvation without help, so that’s where I come in!”

It is for this reason we need to give all credit to God for all that we do.  Our very will is not our own, but it is God who places it in us.  If we can’t take credit for our desires, let alone our works, we have reason to be humble indeed.

Where have you been let pride in the door lately?  Spend a moment to abound in thanksgiving, and recognize that God is the one who gives us the very desires to do those things, let alone does them through us, thanks to His great Holy Spirit.

Shaking Hell from Inside the Closet

It is interesting that in Isaiah 56:7, God didn’t call His temple, a house of worship, or learning, or sacrifice.  He called it a “House of Prayer.”  According to 1 Cor. 3:16-17, we are the temple of God.  The temple was the place where God dwells; incredibly, this means the same God who upholds the universe by his power, dwells within us!

Ron called on us several months ago to take up our priestly status before God, and use it to effect a shaking of hell, a change in the lives of 12 individuals.  He described the Israelite high priest’s garb, and how they would wear 12 precious stones, each representing one of the tribes of Israel, into the Holy place.

We were given our own breastplates to wear before our God when we approach His throne in prayer.  This week, I felt the need to bring more attention to this.  For your sake, and your relationship with God, use them.  For our community’s sake, use them.  For God’s glory’s sake, use them!

Samuel Chadwick once said, “Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.”

To print off another copy of your breastplate, click the link below.  Let’s take back our community!

|LINK TO BREASTPLATE|