Grabbing Hold of God

Much of the contemporary church has lost its reverence for God. He is too often viewed as a sugar daddy, a sort of cosmic automatic teller machine. If we say the right words and punch in the right code, He is obligated to deliver what we want.

True prayer, according to pastor and acclaimed Bible expositor John MacArthur, often involves struggling and grappling with God, proving to Him the deepest concern of one’s heart. Prayer is to be a persistent, courageous struggle from which the believer may come away limping.

Virginia Stem Owens wrote the following about wrestling with God in earnest prayer. Her sentiments stand in marked contrast to the glib, self-centered prayers of our day:

Christians have always interpreted the splitting of the temple veil during the crucifixion as symbolic and the liberation from the mediated presence of God. Henceforth they were “free” to approach him directly which is almost like telling someone he is free to stick his head in the lion’s jaws for once you start praying there is no guarantee that you won’t find yourself before Pharaoh, shipwrecked on a desert island, or in a lion’s den.

 

This is no cosmic teddy bear we are cuddling up to. As one of the one children describes him in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, “he is not a tame lion.” Jacques Ellul is convinced that prayer for persons living in the technological age must be combat, and not just combat with the evil one, with one’s society, or even one’s divided self, though it is also all of these; it is combat with God. We too must struggle with him just as Jacob at Peniel where he earned his name Israel – “he who strives with God.” We too must prepare to say, “I will not let you go til you bless me.”

 

Consider Moses, again and again intervening between the Israelites and God’s wrath; Abraham praying for Sodom; the widow demanding justice of the unjust judge. But in this combat with God, Ellul cautions, we must be ready to bear the consequences … “Jacob’s thigh was pulled out of joint, and he went away lame. However, the most unusual experience will be God’s decision to put to work the person who cried to him …whoever wrestles with God in prayer puts his whole life at stake.”

 

Awful things happen to people who pray. Their plans are frequently disrupted. They end up in strange places. Abraham “went out, not knowing where he was to go” ... After Mary’s magnificent prayer at the annunciation, she finds herself the pariah of Nazareth society.

 

How tempting to up the stakes, making prayer merely another consumer product. How embarrassing to have to admit not only that prayer may get you into a prison, as it did Jeremiah, but also that while you’re moldering away in a miry pit there, you may have a long list of lamentations and unanswered questions to present to your Lord. How are we going to tell them they may end up lame and vagrant if they grasp hold of this God?

(“Prayer – Into the Lion’s Jaws,” Christianity Today, November 19, 1976. pp. 222-223, italics in the original)

 

The Favor of God

This word – FAVOR – can change your life. In the Old Testament it means grace, charm, acceptance, goodwill or desire. In the New Testament, “favor” is from the Greek word “Charis” or “Grace.” It is the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life; the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of divine grace. Lance Wallnau may have defined God’s favor the best when he said, “Favor is the special affection of God toward you that releases an influence on you, so that others are inclined to like you, or to cooperate with you.”

Favor is different from grace, although it comes from the same root word. Grace is undeserved, unmerited. But the Bible is full of instruction about how we can obtain favor. Often I think we believe that God’s favor is reserved for the giants of the faith, i.e. Moses, Joseph, Ruth, Nehemiah, Mary, Paul or John. These luminaries we know God granted favor to but we also realize that we are not in their spiritual class. We need to remember, however, that God's favor is not reserved just for the gifted of the flock. It is available to all of us no matter our stature. But how do we get it?

There are many Scriptures which teach that favor is obtained by the righteous, “For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround him as with a shield” (Psalm 5:12). “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth” (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). “When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7).

There really is no magic formula when it comes to God’s favor. He bestows it on anyone who favors Him and His commandments. In Matthew 6:33 we are told to put the kingdom of first and “all these things will be added unto you.” These “things” are referring to our physical needs – food, water, clothing and shelter. So we see that God will continually bless our lives even down to our basic needs IF we put His kingdom first in our lives. And I think this is where most of us struggle. The cares and trials of this world seemingly make it impossible to put the things of God first, yet this is how we obtain His favor. Of course, this makes perfect sense as God wants a relationship with us not just a token hour of worship each Sunday. He wants what is important to Him to be important to us.

I have found in my own life that as I have walked in obedience, God will meet my needs and the needs of my family in ways I would never have expected. Just this past week, I had a friend who I have only known for a few months give me bags of clothes and toys for my daughters because her daughter had outgrown them. I can’t even begin to express the gratitude I have toward this woman as we are not in a financial position to be able to afford to buy such things right now. This is just a simple example but I found a wonderful list of what God’s favor can do in your life. I have included it below. I hope it is a blessing as you realize all that God wants to bestow upon your life as you commit to following Him.

What God’s Favor Can Do in Your Life

1. Produce supernatural promotion and increase (Gen 39:21)

2. Bring restoration of everything the enemy has stolen (Exodus 3:21)

3. Bring honor in the midst of adversaries (Exodus 11:3)

4.  Produce increased assets (Deuteronomy 33:23)

5. Give great and unusual victories even against impossible odds (Joshua 6:20; 10: 9, 20)

6. Give recognition and promotion even when you seem to the least likely one to receive it
(1 Samuel 16:22)

7. Produce prominence and preferential treatment, favor and kindness (Esther 5:8)

8. Get petitions granted, even by ungodly civil authority (Esther 5:8)

9. Change rules, regulations, even laws if necessary to your advantage (Esther 8:5)

10. Win battles you did not even have to fight because God will fight them for you (Psalm 44:3)
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“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11

Date Setters

It has been hard the last couple of weeks to avoid all the hoopla surrounding May 21, the supposed date for the end of the world to take place according to Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping. If you are not aware, Camping is the president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the United States as well as a website. Camping uses Bible-based numerology to predict dates for the end of the world. His current end times prediction is that the Rapture will be on May 21, 2011 and that God will completely destroy the Earth and the universe five months later on October 21. He had previously predicted that the Rapture would occur in September 1994.

I am not sure if Camping actually believes what he is propagating or if he is just looking for 15 minutes of fame but the Bible clearly states in Mark 13:32 that no man, not the angels, and not even the Lord Jesus Himself knows the return of God to Earth. Only the Father knows the date.

Of course date setting is nothing new. Many people over the course of history have predicted the Lord’s return to the earth and all of them have been wrong. This is not surprising in lieu of the fact that the Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 that the Lord’s return would be sudden, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.” When I read this verse I often think of 9/11 and how that event happened on a random Tuesday morning with no one expecting it or ever thinking it would happen. I believe that is how the Lord’s return will take place.

But I think when people, or more importantly Christians, get caught up with date setting and begin spending hours trying to decipher Bible numerology, they miss the true message of Christianity. The Lord Jesus told us when He departed to preach the gospel to every creature. This is the great commission. The message of the cross has always been and will always be the most important message we ever proclaim. It is the cross that saves, it is the cross that forgives, and it is at the cross that we find mercy and grace.

One day the Lord will indeed judge the earth but right now He is in the business of saving the world. When the Lord does return we do not want to be like the Jews during the period of the great prophet Jeremiah and say, “The harvest is past, The summer is ended, And we are not saved!”

Jesus told us in the Gospel of John to not delay in bringing people to the knowledge of the gospel, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest?’ Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”

This is our mission. This is our only mission. As the Lord continues to tarry there is still time to share the gospel with others and affect eternal destinies. While I do long for the appearing of the Lord and look forward with hope toward that day when I will see Him face to face, I cannot let that thought distract me from my true purpose as His child.

In many ways, I hope Camping is right and the Lord does appear tomorrow and if He should that still leaves us with 24 hours to proclaim the gospel to others. Live today like the Lord will return tomorrow and share the gospel with others in love. Time is short and the Lord could return at any moment.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:9-10)

The Heart of the Issue

The NFL has been in the midst of a labor dispute for months now. Just a couple of weeks ago, the owners locked out the players and the players union decertified in an effort to get a judge to overrule the lockout next month. The media has been covering both sides of this debate ad nauseam since the football season ended in early February. What I wanted to focus on though is the larger implications of this dispute from a Biblical perspective.

As I read the quotes from the owners and the players, I keep seeing the same phrase repeatedly over and over again, “This is a business.” This phrase usually comes on the heels of an owner or player asserting their case and then trying to apologize for sounding like a kid in a candy store by quicklly declaring, “this is just part of the business” as if that magic phrase makes their "me first" diatribe acceptable. What they are really saying is, “I want what is mine.” And this really is the heart of the issue as the heart of the matter is always the heart.

Jesus said all the issues of life spring up from the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 tell us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” The NFL labor situation is really just a microcosm of society. That is why people are always so quick to want to take sides. You have some people who look at the owners as filthy billionaires who are trying to cheat the players out of their money and then you have the other group of people who say the players should just keep quiet and be thankful that they make millions of dollars to play football.

God has something much different to say on the subject. He tells us to not put our trust in riches of this world for “riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven” (Proverbs 23:5).

For many years I worked in corporate America and was shocked and often saddened to see the type of deceit and cruel behavior that took place as companies scrambled to get their piece of the pie. What they failed to understand then and now is that the pie is not reality. The pie will be gone one day as we all stand before God and give an account for our lives. Only one thing will matter on that day, did we put our faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. For those of us that have already trusted the Lord, the Bible tells us that our works will be tried by fire and we will be rewarded or lose reward accordingly (1 Corinthians 3:11-15).

I have also found in my own life that the riches of this world really do not bring the happiness and contentment that people expect. Just listen to some of the wealthiest people of their day:

- "The care of $200 million is enough to kill everyone. There is no pleasure in it." - W.H. Vanderbilt

- "I am the most miserable man on earth." - John Jacob Astor

- "I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness." - John D. Rockefeller

- "Millionaries seldom smile." - Andrew Carnegie

- "I was happier doing a mechanic's job." - Henry Ford

When our Savior preached the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 many thought He was insane. The selfless principles he outlined that pictured the kingdom of God were too difficult for many to comprehend. It is easy to see why upon hearing this sermon, His listeners were shocked. Jesus begins each point by naming a group of people normally thought to be unblessed or unblessable and pronounces them blessed because of the presence and availability of the abundant life in God's kingdom to everyone, everywhere, regardless of status, circumstances, or condition.

In other words, Jesus’ sermon was the antithesis of the culture 2,000 years ago. Not much has changed today. I recently read how the market has been flooded with New England Patriot championship rings from the early part of this decade when the team won three championships in four years. Apparently, the hard economic times has forced many players to sell their rings to pawn shops for ten percent of what the ring is actually worth.

Jesus is offering something much more valuable today than a championship ring or an executive promotion or a new house. He is offering Himself and within that offer comes the abundant life. For you see the abundant life that everyone is pursuing on Wall Street and within corporate America and on the sports field is a mirage. It offers nothing lasting, nothing of eternal value in this life or the next. The true abundant life exists within the life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is here at the cross of Calvary that you find what you have been looking for – unconditional love, forgiveness, and self-worth. It is Jesus Christ who is the key to all that fulfills and truly satisfies. If you do not know Him, I pray you come to know the Savior today, Romans 10:9-10.

The Harvest Is Past, The Summer Is Ended, And We Are Not Saved

I am not sure if there is a passage of Scripture that is more somber and terrifying to contemplate than Jeremiah 8:20. Its warning rings even louder today as we begin to enter a watershed moment in the history of our nation as we move toward a more socialist mindset, and even further toward a one world government. These events did not just happen or appear with the election of President Obama as some seem to want to believe. No, this geopolitical course has been in the works for decades as America, along with the rest of the world, has put their faith and trust in humanism instead of the Living God.

It is stunning to see the pages of prophecy as outlined in the prophetic books of the Bible come to pass before our eyes. As I listen to men of God preach the Word of God these days, it is clear that the Spirit of God is focusing on the Lord’s return. It seems as if every preacher of the Word has his message laden with the truths of end time prophecy to warn listeners that Christ is coming and that the age of grace is about to come to an abrupt end.

In Jeremiah 8:20 it is interesting to notice the time frame that is given in the relationship between “the harvest is past” and “summer.” According to Dr. Neal Chadwick, in Israel's agricultural economy, there were three main harvests. The barley harvest was first and it occurred in the spring around the time of Passover. About six weeks later the wheat harvest would commence at Pentecost, and in the fall, corresponding to the Feast of Tabernacles, was the fruit harvest.

When the people cried about the harvest being over and summer being gone, they were no doubt lamenting that the time for the grain harvests had past and they had not been able to reap the fields. This would mean that they would head into winter without any food supplies. Famine and death would follow.

Chadwick goes on to say that in the New Testament, the idea of “harvest” is connected with the ingathering of souls into the Kingdom of God. That's part of the significance of the harvest festival of Pentecost when 3,000 people were welcomed into the first church. When Jesus pointed out the need for evangelists, He said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Luke 10:2). Jesus also referred to the harvest as representing the end of this age when the angels will gather all believers into the heavenly kingdom (Matthew 13:39).

We can surmise from these passages that there is coming a time when God's patience will be exhausted, and He will bring to an end the present age and the world as we know it. This will bring to a conclusion the harvest, and the summer of opportunity to be saved will be over. In that day, there will be many who will repeat the saying first spoken by Jeremiah's contemporaries, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

Pretty gloomy, I know. But there is hope. God has NOT returned yet. There is STILL time to be saved.

The way of salvation is outlined in Romans by the Apostle Paul:
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (3:23). You see, man stands guilty before a holy and just God, and the cost of sin, according to divine justice is death, “For the wages of sin is death.” (6:23) But here is the good news, “God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!” (5:8) All we need to do is, “Confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, and thou shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (10:9-10)

I hope and pray that if you do not know the Lord personally that today will be your day of salvation and that you will be spared from ever uttering the dreadful words recorded in Jeremiah.

“‘Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.’ Blessed are those who do His commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.” - Revelation 22: 12-14

Tribulation is the Appointed Path to the Kingdom

First, I am hoping that the title of this blog does not scare anyone away from reading further. I debated much about changing it but decided to keep it as I think it most accurately reflects the context of this post. It may sound familiar to you as it is a quote from Sir Walter Scott as he was discussing the Christian life. He too, did not intend to scare anyone away, but his choice of words was also quite deliberate as he wanted to make sure no one believed that once they put their trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior that their life would be all sunshine and rainbows. It would seem that this type of prosperity gospel, where God is viewed as a sugar daddy just waiting to answer our every heart’s desire, was prevalent during Scott’s day, and also permeates our day too within the Pentecostal and faith movements.

But what does the Bible have to say? As you read through the Word of God, there is a theme of tribulation woven throughout the very lives of the writers of the Bible. Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) when he was in the wilderness. David wrote the majority of his Psalms when he was running for his life from King Saul. Ezekiel wrote while he was in exile. Jeremiah, who is often called the weeping prophet, lived a life that was characterized by trial and persecution. Peter wrote his two letters just before he was martyred. Paul wrote many of his letters while in prison and John, the beloved apostle of Jesus, was isolated on the island of Patmos when he penned the Book of Revelation. Speaking of John, I heard a preacher once say that when John was cut off from civilization on that small, deserted island. Shut off from everyone. He was shut up to God and there received the most extensive revelation of future events ever shown to any writer in the New Testament.

It is amazing to ponder that thought, isn’t it? John, who was put on the island of Patmos (a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea) for preaching the gospel, saw Christ revealed in all his glory and was given the awesome task of not just witnessing the Second Coming of Christ, but writing down the event for every future generation.

While there are many purposes for suffering – to glorify God, to reveal our spiritual condition, to chastise us for disobedience, to refine us to make us more like Christ, to develop within us the fruits of the Spirit – I think many times trials and tribulations are there just to bring us into the quite place where we can hear from God and know Him in a new way.

So often in the Scriptures we are admonished to spend time alone with the Lord, “Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). “Therefore I was left alone when I saw this great vision…” (Daniel 10:8). Jesus, Himself, often rose early in the morning to spend time alone with the Father, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He [Jesus] went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Sir Walter Scott said that tribulation is the appointed path to the kingdom because we only get to the kingdom in the patience of Christ. Herein lies a marvelous truth. So many people claim to want to really know the Lord but they do not want to have to go through anything or give anything to truly know Him. A relationship with anyone has a cost, and so too with Christ, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it” (Luke 14: 27-28).

If we truly want to know the Living God and all his glory than we have to be willing to be separated unto Him, each of us in our quiet place, stripped of self and the commotion of life, always remembering that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

"No soul can really be at rest until it has given up dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone… If God is what He would seem to be from His revealings; if He is indeed the 'God of all comfort;' if He is our Shepherd; if He is really and truly our Father; if, in short, all the many aspects He has told us of His character and His ways are actually true, then we must come to the positive conviction that He is, in Himself alone, enough for all our needs and that we may rest in Him absolutely and forever.” - Hannah Whitall Smith

He Will Rejoice over You with Singing

I was spending some time this week reading the Book of Zephaniah. The book is found toward the end of the Old Testament and is only three chapters long but contains many wonderful spiritual truths. Few know of or have spent any considerable amount of time studying the prophet Zephaniah as he was a contemporary of the great prophet Jeremiah, but I think much can be gleaned from this prophetical book.

As background, the Book of Zephaniah attributes its authorship to “Zephaniah, son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of King Josiah son of Atom of Judah.” It is believed that Zephaniah wrote his book during the time of King Josiah, who ruled over Judah from approximately 640-609 BC. The picture of Jerusalem which Zephaniah paints indicates that he was active prior to the religious reforms of King Josiah, which are described in 2 Kings 23. These reforms took place in 622 BC. Zephaniah was probably the first prophet following the prophecies of Isaiah and the violent reign of Manasseh. Both Zephaniah and Jeremiah urged King Josiah to enact religious reforms, which he eventually did.

The primary purpose of the book’s composition was to alter the behavior (particularly religious behavior) of the author’s contemporary Jerusalemites through the threat of future calamity for “those who have turned back from following the Lord…who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him” (1:6). Zephaniah speaks of the “Great Day of the Lord” – when the Lord will judge all the people of the earth. This coming judgment will affect all of the nations, including the author’s own nation of Judah where God is understood to reside. The book concludes by extending a promise of deliverance to the faithful remnant of Israel.

It is this glorious promise of deliverance that I wanted to spend some time discussing. It is found in chapter 3, verse 17, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Jesus said, “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). And Zephaniah tells us that when all those repentant, humble, lowly sinners gather before God, He will not look down upon them, or riddle them with guilt, or pity them but he will rejoice over them with gladness and singing! “As a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5).

John Piper says that in contemplating this verse, we should banish from our minds forever any thought that God admits us begrudgingly into his Kingdom, as though Christ found a loophole in the law, did some fancy plea-bargaining and squeaked us by the Judge. It is God Himself, the Judge, who put Christ forward as our substitutionary sacrifice, and when we trust Him, God welcomes us with a chorus of singing. He puts a ring on our finger, kills the fatted calf, throws a party, shouts a shout that shakes the ends of creation and leads in the festal dance.

Isn’t it a wonderful thought to know that our God is waiting to welcome us with rejoicing and singing? This image often reminds me of the prodigal son who returned home not to find his father waiting to punish him, judge him or make an example of him but running toward him, with open arms to meet him, welcome him and celebrate his return home. Therefore, while the Day of the Lord waits let all of us do as the prophet Zephaniah exhorts, “Seek the Lord all you humble of the land… seek righteousness, seek humility… Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem” (Zephaniah 2:3; 3:14). Amen.