October 31, 2022

Numbers 11: 18-20 (NIV)

“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now, the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. . . . not . . . for just one day . . . but for a whole month – until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it . . .”

We are practically slaves to our own whims and desires.*

Once in awhile, during the summer, our parents would take my brother and me to the “root beer stand” after church on Sunday night. They always ordered us a small mug each, no matter how much we begged for a larger one. One time we got to go there with out-of-town relatives and they let us get whatever size mug we wanted. Afterwards, I felt like I was going to explode and my brother claimed to feel the same way. Getting what we wanted didn’t make us as happy as we thought it would.

I’m not much to complain about a free meal that I didn’t have to cook but I might have been whining right along with the people of Israel over having to eat manna meal after meal day after day. It doesn’t sound appetizing: it was like coriander seed and looked like resin; they ground it or crushed it; cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. There is no mention of seasoning. There is also no mention of gratitude for the Lord’s provision. They were in the desert where, left to their own devices, they would have had to settle for what they could snag for themselves. Lizards and snakes. Birds, maybe. God gave them manna every day – all they had to do was get up every morning and gather it.

After listening to the people’s complaints, the Lord had to listen to Moses’ complaints about their complaints. So God said, “Let them eat meat.” They were going to eat meat until it came out of their noses. It was a plague of quail. As someone has observed, “In time you may come to hate what you thought you had to have.”*

The moral of this story: Don’t make God mad. Be grateful for his provision. Don’t whine about how good you had it back in the days when you were a slave. Be careful what you wish for – even more careful what you ask God for. 

We are a people obsessed with having our individual needs met, and we have become indoctrinated with the belief that it is our right to have things our way.*

October 30, 2022

I John 5: 1 (NIV)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

In the community of faith, we do not choose our companions. We do not get to look for the sane, the attractive, or those most likely to help us succeed. We have to make do with what we’re given.*

I have attended many bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers for people who don’t know me well. I feel like I know them because I rocked them as babies in the church nursery and/or watched them grow up in youth group with my own kids. These young people are my friends’ children (and my children's friends) so I love them – at least enough to show up at their special occasions bearing gifts.

If I can do that much for the children of my friends, how much more love should I have for the children of my Heavenly Father? We share a Father; that makes us brothers and sisters. We don’t choose our biological siblings so sometimes we are stuck with one or two that we don’t get along with so well. Our spiritual brothers and sisters, likewise, are not always the easiest people to love.

In this verse, John doesn’t command us to love the Father’s children – he just says that everyone who loves the Father loves his child. It is what it is. He helps us out with this in the next verse by saying, “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.” Love and obey God. Okay. But keep reading. John says that God’s commands aren’t burdensome and everyone who is born of God overcomes the world (verse 3). If that’s true, surely it’s possible to love those less lovable people in our lives. After all, love isn’t a feeling. It’s something you do.

“Obedience is the only proof of love."*

October 29, 2022

John 17: 20 (NIV)

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.

The final prayer of Jesus was about you.*

The gospels provide us with plenty of evidence that Jesus was a man of prayer. John chapter 17 is his longest recorded prayer, revealing our Savior’s heart. Jesus begins this prayer by – surprise – praying for himself. It is not a selfish prayer but one that’s about doing the Father’s will and bringing him glory. He follows with a heartfelt prayer for his followers. He doesn’t tell God anything God doesn’t already know, but the human Jesus had a human need to communicate with his Father. His request for his disciples is that they will be protected from the evil one and sanctified by the truth.

Finally, he prays for me. I am one of those who believe in him through the message of his disciples. He looked ahead to the far distant future and made provisions for my salvation. He placed me in a home with parents who brought me up among the fellowship of believers and who modeled Christian living. What about you? He was praying for you, too. How did he arrange for you to be exposed to the gospel? Family? Friends? A chance encounter? I love stories of how people have come to know Jesus. I love that he cared enough to pray for each of us even while his own death was on his mind. I love that some of us get to be the tools through which his prayer is answered.

He closes his prayer by expressing his desire that the love the Father has for him may be in us and that he himself may be in us also. Whether that prayer is answered or not is up to us. Will we allow him to dwell in us?

Jesus prayed not just as a model, but because he had to pray.*

October 28, 2022

John 13: 14 -16 (NIV)

“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I . . . have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, or is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”

Why did Jesus make himself nothing? So we all could be something.*

When Jesus said that he had set an example, he wasn’t referring to foot-washing literally. His example was in the attitude – humility. Jesus admits that his disciples are right to call him Teacher and Lord but they don’t fully understand the significance of those positions as they pertain to him. So he shows them what he means by lowering himself to wash their feet.

Like the disciples, we think of people in “high places” as being too good to stoop to perform servants’ work. We might even think of ourselves as one of those people. As usual, Jesus has a different way of looking at things. From his position of honor, Jesus demonstrates a new standard for greatness. And when your superior humbles himself, you should, too – because no servant is greater than his master.

Jesus has presented a new principle – now how does it fit into your life? In what areas does pride have a foothold (no pun intended!)? Perhaps you think of yourself as “humble enough,” making it okay to hoard that little bit of conceit. Humility can be faked if your acting skills are good enough, but God knows it’s only a show. We will never reach Jesus’ level of greatness until we are as low as we can go.

True humility comes from standing next to the cross.*

October 27, 2022

Luke 14: 27 (NIV)

“And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

There are no uncrucified disciples.*

“I guess it’s just my cross to bear.” How often do we hear that expression? Do you ever hear it and think that somebody is exaggerating the weight of their load? In response to this sentiment, Oswald Chambers writes: “We are apt to imagine that the cross we have to carry means the ordinary troubles and trials of life, but we must have those whether we are Christians or not. Neither is our cross suffering for conscience’s sake. Our cross is something that comes only with the peculiar relationship of a disciple to Jesus Christ; it is the evidence that we have denied our right to ourselves.”* 

Our daily burdens – however heavy they may be – are not our cross. Our cross is not even the sacrifices we make in order to live a Christian life. When we submit to carrying our cross, it is a private matter between us and the Lord. What we see that looks like cross-bearing is only an outward indication that we might be carrying a cross. When I deny my right to myself, there should be  external, visible signs of the change in me, but only God knows the rebellions that my heart clings to, the idols of self that stand between me and him.

Some of Jesus’ disciples are called to more sacrifice and suffering than others but all of us are called to give up ourselves. When you let go of yourself, your cross is not your burden but your honor as you shoulder it on the path behind Jesus and his cross.

If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you. God’s experiments always succeed.*

October 26, 2022

John 13: 23 (NIV)

One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.

Stop and ask Jesus to remind you how He sees you.*

In the sensitivity training required by my job, we were taught to refer to a handicapped individual as “a person with a disability” rather than as “a disabled person.” Not being so very sensitive myself, I failed to see the distinction at first. Then I thought of it in terms of myself being referred to as “the lady with blonde hair” as opposed to “The Blonde.” How much of our self-worth is tangled up with how we identify ourselves?

Is John being just a little bit arrogant, claiming a special relationship with the Lord?  I have heard that this may have been a literary device employed in the Jewish culture at this time. Also, I sense humility in John’s refusal to include his own name in the story - though there might be a hint of pride – or gratitude, perhaps – in knowing that he is loved by Jesus.

Philip Yancey, in his book, What’s so Amazing about Grace? poses these questions: “What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as ‘the one Jesus loves’? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day?”* I think that someone who can define himself as “the one whom Jesus loves” has a clear idea of his value. This person knows the price that Jesus paid for him; and knowing that price, longs to be more worthy of the honor and the sacrifice.

What do you see as your primary identity in life? Are you a mom? A loyal employee? A good person?  Is this your most valuable quality? Or is your worth factor determined by the blood of the Lamb?

What a value hath God set upon the soul! He made it after his image, he redeemed it with Christ's blood.*

October 25, 2022

Psalm 27: 8 (NIV)

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Once you have seen his face you will forever long to see it again.*

All I have to do is login to Facebook and I can see pictures of the precious little faces of three of my grandchildren. Pictures of my other two grandchildren are texted to me almost every day.  I am thankful that my daughters-in-law take advantage of modern technology which allows us to stay in touch even when we can’t be together. But nothing can take the place of face-to-face, in-person interaction with someone you love. In this psalm, David expresses that longing to be in the presence of God and to see his face. But in Exodus 33: 20, God told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

In the 1985 movie Cocoon, a group of extra-terrestrial aliens has come to earth on some unfinished business. They don’t actually have bodies – they’re just wispy, shapeless beings – so they inhabit human bodies in order to accomplish their mission without alarming the people around them. Similarly, God is spirit and has no physical body in which to move about among his people – until he inhabited the body of Jesus. Before Jesus shed his physical body, he promised to send his Spirit to dwell in his people.

In Ephesians 2: 22, Paul writes that we are being built to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Now, when we long to seek God’s face, we find him looking out from the faces of his faithful followers. If we find God’s face by looking into the faces of his people, then we should also see his face looking back at us from the mirror. Next time you work on your hair or brush your teeth, examine your face more closely. If you don’t see the face of God, perhaps you need to take some time to seek his face and his presence in your life. He rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11: 6).

He takes his children to higher levels of fellowship so they may hear him speaking “face to face.”*

October 24, 2022

Isaiah 65: 24 (NIV)

“Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear."

Don’t think thoughts you don’t want Jesus to hear.*

Often, while riding in the car or hiking along a trail, my husband would bring up a subject and I would say, “I was just thinking about that!” One night as he was presenting the lesson to our small group, he asked a question which I proceeded to answer with one of my typical smart remarks. He said, “When I was writing the lesson I knew that’s what you were going to say!”

Sometimes we’re just attuned to another person’s train of thought. Whatever triggers a notion in one mind fires the same brain waves in the other. It’s nice to be close to someone who knows us so well. It’s even better when the other person is God.

We are not the original intended audience for today's verse but it expresses a truth that can be found throughout scripture. God is so in tune to us, so anxious to hear from us, that he answers before we have even called. He hears what we have to say before we’ve finished saying it. Sometimes we forget how interested God is in our thoughts. When we allow unwholesomeness to occupy space in our minds, we are crowding God out.

How do impure thoughts get into our minds? We put them there with what we see and hear. Sometimes we don’t mean to expose ourselves to bad influences – life happens all around us if we aren’t living in a cave – but we contaminate our own minds by what we read, watch, listen to, and dwell on. The antidote to a dirty mind is to fill it with cleanliness. We must be selective in what we put in there. Read Philippians 4: 8 for some helpful hints on what to think about. Then perhaps when God leans in to listen to your thoughts, you won’t be embarrassed by what he hears.

It’s not enough to keep the bad stuff out. We’ve got to let the good stuff in.*

October 23, 2022

Proverbs 12: 18 (NIV)

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Even truthful words can damage.*

I find it easy to recall some of the reckless words that have pierced my spirit. Sadly, I can also remember a few occasions when such words came from my own mouth to cause damage to others. Whoever came up with, “Sticks and stones may break my bones . . .” didn’t know what he was talking about. We might wish that we were so thick-skinned that harsh words couldn’t penetrate to our heart. And I wish that my idle, thoughtless speech didn’t have the power to hurt others.

If words can have such power for evil, can’t they also have power for good? Yes; it just seems to take a little more prompting for us to recall those words. This proverb’s reminder that “the tongue of the wise brings healing,” was just what I needed to bring to mind some of those soothing words. I think of a Christian counselor who helped me when my first marriage was coming to an end. I often say that he wasn’t able to save my marriage but he saved me. My parents helped soothe my soul during that same chapter of my life. Many sermons have spoken words of wisdom just when I needed them. And God’s word has never failed to be the voice of comfort, encouragement, or admonition according to my need.

If you have been bruised by someone else’s words, immerse yourself in the word of God. Let his Spirit speak to you and soothe your soul. If Jesus can calm the sea with a simple command, he can certainly bring peace to the storms of your life. And when his healing has washed over you and restored your soul, allow yourself to be his instrument – his wise and gentle mouthpiece – of healing for others.

I am often amazed at the power of God’s Word, but I shouldn’t be.*

October 22, 2022

Nehemiah 4: 1, 8, 10 (NIV)

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry . . . He ridiculed the Jews. . . . They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. . . . Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we can’t rebuild the wall.

Crisis doesn’t necessarily make character, but it certainly does reveal it.*

Nehemiah had never been to Jerusalem, the capital city of his homeland, but it weighed heavily on his heart that 100 years after the first exiles had returned there from Persia, the city’s walls had not been rebuilt. His boss, King Artaxerxes, learns of Nehemiah’s concern for Jerusalem and sends Nehemiah off to Judah on a reconnaissance mission, armed with letters of safe conduct and a request for a donation of timber from the king’s forest.

After Nehemiah assessed the progress of the construction of the city walls, he was able to inspire the officials to exclaim, “Let us start rebuilding.” It didn’t take long before trouble arose, but they were not insurmountable obstacles. Instead of complaining or giving up, Nehemiah found solutions.

First problem: Some locals weren’t happy about the project and began to heckle the workers. They were led by Sanballat, who was a member of an influential political family, and Tobiah, an Ammonite official. 

Solution: Ignore them and keep on working. 

Second problem: A plot was hatched by Sanballat, Tobiah, and some other nasty characters. They were going to “fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble.” 

Solution: Pray to God and post a guard 24/7; organize and arm the people according to family groups to stand guard. 

Third problem: The workers were exhausted. (Actually, they made the complaint sound like two problems: tired workers and lots of rubble.) But mostly they were afraid. 

Solution: While half the men work, the other half are equipped with weapons; establish an emergency procedure involving a trumpet call and a rally point; have the workers spend the night in relative safety within the city.

Nehemiah sets a wonderful example for us to follow when addressing problems. We first must note what he didn’t do: Look for someone to blame. Most of the culprits were easily identified but he didn’t waste time calling them names or indulging in “if only” speculations. And then there is what he did do: He prayed and looked for solutions. He prayed, he planned, he organized, he was positive; and he worked alongside his men, sharing every hardship they endured. (See verse 23.)

We find that Jesus demonstrated similar problem-solving skills in the performance of his first miracle (John 2: 1-11). When the complaint was brought to his attention, he didn’t stop to find out whose fault it was (again, it was pretty clear who was to blame), and he solved the issue – miraculously.

Next time you are faced with a complaint, don’t worry about whose fault it is. Pray and get to work on the solution. You will get much better results that way!

Whatever your . . . challenges, you need only to ask the One whose resources are unlimited.*