Category: devotional

1 Samuel 8:17-20 (ESV)

 

“He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

 

            Have you ever noticed that people do not often respond to warnings? In the passage above, God, through Samuel, told the people of Israel that, if they chose for themselves a king to reign over them in place of simply following the Lord, they would be sorry. The king would enslave the people and make them miserable. The king would take the property and family members of the people for his own benefit. Despite these dire warnings, the people of Israel demanded a king, saying that they wanted to be just like all the other nations around them.

 

            Wouldn’t you love to be able to say that you and I are brighter than those folks? God has told us in his word what we need for everlasting joy. He has told us that pleasures for us are at the Lord’s right hand forever (Psalm 16:11). God has told us that sin leads to misery, hardship, guilt, shame, and death. But we do not often listen any better than did the people of Israel. Instead, like the people of Israel, we want what we want. We desire to live just like the lost world around us, or at least to share in their autonomy. We desire what we think will make our lives more comfortable, even if that comfort will, according to God, lead us to death.

 

            Why do you think God puts a passage like this in Scripture? Why do you think he let Israel do this? God is fully in control. He could have put a stop to these events. But God chose to let us see what the human heart will do when faced with a choice between following God and following its own desires. God gave us this story to remind us that, without his mercy and grace, we would walk right up to the cliff of eternal destruction and leap off.

 

            Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus came to earth and suffered for God’s children’s rebellious and self-indulgent hearts. Jesus knew our rebellious nature, and he still chose to come and pay the penalty for our sin. Jesus chose to reach out and draw us to himself so that we might live, not in a stupor of self-made misery only to fall under God’s wrath, but instead in the sweet joy of beholding the glory of our God that will satisfy our souls forever.

 

            So, when you see accounts like the one above, be careful not to put yourself on the moral high ground. We all rebel in the face of God’s commands. What Christians have in our favor is not our goodness, but the grace of God in Christ.

1 Samuel 4:5-10 (ESV)

 

As soon as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, “What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” And when they learned that the ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A god has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight.”

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers.

 

            Context matters. Rules of biblical interpretation matter. These thoughts came home to me for some strange reason this morning as I read through the above passage. I did not think about hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) because of the story. Rather, I thought about how to interpret the Bible because of how I could imagine the passage preached.

 

            Let’s remove the passage from any context and just limit ourselves to the paragraph or so above. What is the story? Israel brought the Ark of God into the camp and were greatly encouraged. The Philistines wrongly interpreted the presence of the Ark as the presence of multiple gods who would give Israel great power. The enemy of Israel then rallied, summoning their courage and putting Israel to a great defeat.

 

            If we ignored context and rules of biblical interpretation, especially allowing other passages to shed light on this one, we might conclude that the best way to win a victory is to so misunderstand who God is and how he works as to somehow find strength by opposing him. Clearly this pattern worked for the Philistines.

 

            Of course, this passage is not at all about the Philistines and what they believed. They could not see behind the scenes. They could not see that God was using them as tools in his hand to accomplish his plan of chastising Israel for her unfaithfulness. They did not know that, in the surrounding context, God had revealed that he was about to take the priesthood away from one family and raise up Samuel. The passage shows us that God is in control and will accomplish his will. The passage glorifies our Lord, but it only does so when it is interpreted properly, in its context.

 

            I suppose the reason this grabs my attention is that I have to be very careful when I interpret passages. I need to be thoughtful as I help others to interpret Scripture as well. If we miss the big picture, failing to allow Scripture to illumine Scripture, we will become myopic. If we are not careful, we will rip paragraphs out of their context and completely miss the biblical picture. We must strive to read the Bible as God’s story, God’s revelation of himself to us. We must let it all shine the light of God’s glory into our lives. We must not pick it apart, but hold it together in order to see the God it reveals.

 

            Of course, I am not discouraging in-depth study of a single passage or verse or even word. Such study is important for developing our theology and settling difficult issues. What I am reminding us to do is to interpret wisely, with the whole biblical picture in view. May our handling of God’s word be careful and reverent as God’s word deserves.

Psalm 22:1-3

 

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

 

                One of the beauties of the psalms is the fact that these prayers and songs so often reflect the genuine hardship of life. The psalms, unlike modern prosperity preachers, remind us that living in the family of God is not easy. Often we suffer. Often we do not get what we want. Often things go far differently than we expect.

 

                Psalm 22 is a perfect example of such a psalm. In it, the psalmist is suffering greatly. Verses 1-2 show us that he is despairing and feeling forsaken. How much anguish is in his soul? He expresses such sorrow that this psalm is the one on the lips of our Lord Jesus as he was crucified and suffered the wrath of God for sins he had not committed.

 

                How do we deal with it when we feel forsaken? How should we respond when things have gone badly for us? Look at verse 3, and find the answer. David, in his pain, in his deep suffering, makes one solid declaration that puts everything in right perspective. David says of God, “Yet you are holy.”

 

                When things do not go our way, we often feel unfairly treated. If our dark hearts are allowed to vent the poison of our sin, they will accuse God of mistreating us. WE are apt to feel like Eve in the garden and believe that God has held back something good from us that we deserve to have.

 

                So, what do we do to overcome these feelings? The answer is, like the psalmist, to focus on the holiness of God. God is perfect, and infinitely so. God’s perfection makes him utterly different than us, above us, superior to us. He does not owe us ease. He cannot mistreat us, because he is the very definition of good. Anything that he gives us that is less than hell is mercy. Thus we can never be forsaken by God, If he forgives our sin and makes us his children, there is nothing in this life that we can go through that is wrong for God to allow.

 

                Think of how many of God’s children have suffered greatly. David was chased by a murderous King Saul. Job was afflicted by Satan himself under the sovereign plan of God. Joseph was sold as a slave. Paul, Peter, James, and countless others in the family of God were imprisoned and put to death for their faith. Even the Son of God suffered humiliation and execution at the hands of sinful men. Yet, in all these, God has never ceased to be perfect, holy, and always right.

 

                What we must understand is that the ways of a holy God are not our ways. God is wiser than us. He knows more of what he is doing than we can. He will refine us through the crucible of suffering. HE will give us the joy of seeing his glory as we trust in him through hardships. He will prove himself as perfect in eternity as he rewards his followers with his perfect love and kindness.

 

                So, when we suffer or when things do not go our way, let us remember that God is holy. He is perfect. He cannot fail. As 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 reminds us, this life is short. Our momentary afflictions will be as nothing when they are compared to an eternity of perfection. The always right, always perfect, infinitely holy God will never wrong us. He may let us go through hardships, but he will never ultimately forsake us. Let us trust him and know that his ways are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth.

Acts 13:13

 

Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem,

 

                How do you deal with it when you fail as a Christian? You know, of course, that we all fail, and sometimes royally. I can look back over life experiences as a believer, even as a pastor, and see things that I messed up completely. How should we deal with it?

 

                When Paul and his group set out on the missionary journey of Acts 13, they brought along John Mark. Mark, the young relative of Barnabas, failed. He flaked out and left the mission team without his support. We don’t know why. Did he conflict with somebody? Did he get homesick? Did he just wimp out? All we know is that he left.

 

                Recognize that this decision of Mark’s was a big deal. It had consequences that rippled through the church. Paul and Barnabas could no longer work together in future ministry when they disagreed over how to respond to Mark. What John Mark did caused big problems. It was the kind of gaff that would make any of us think that our ministry lives or at least our usefulness was at an end.

 

                But if we read to the end of the story, all the way toward the end of Paul’s life, we find out that Paul thought Mark was a very important friend and fellow minister. Writing to timothy, Paul said, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

 

                I have often heard these snippets of Marks’ life preached with a strong focus on forgiveness and reconciliation. Usually we emphasize Paul’s forgiving spirit. But I think we can also learn from Mark. I do not think there is any doubt that Mark knew he messed up. Could Mark have thought himself a failure in ministry? Finally he gets a chance to do some real mission work, and what happens? He blows it, that is what happens. Could Mark have ever seen himself as possibly useful again? Apparently so, because he became such an important tool in the hand of God that he penned one of the four gospels.

 

                There are failures that men can commit that will disqualify them from pastoral ministry. I do not at all ignore that truth. However, there are also failures that we can experience that scar us, but which do not end our usefulness to God. Even those men disqualified from pastoral ministry have the ability to serve the Lord well in the future in other capacities if they repent. The point here is that we need to recognize that no past failure renders us useless for the Kingdom of God. No bad experience, no botched mission trip, no dropped ball, no bad committee chairmanship, no rough job experience is enough to make us no longer part of God’s plan. God has the ability to use any of us, even those of us who have failed miserably at different times, to accomplish his will for his glory and our joy.

Acts 13:8-12

 

8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

 

            How important is it that Christians look and sound nice at all times? If you observed the lives of many saints, there seems to be a belief among American Christians that says that we have to be syrupy sweet at all times if we are ever going to see anyone come to faith in our Lord.

 

            However, If you look at the words of Paul above, you will notice that sweetness was not his only distinguishing quality. I am sure that Paul, at times, was very loving, kind, and gracious—all believers will be if they are truly believers. But when something evil was taking place around Paul, when a man was intentionally opposing the things of God, Paul did not speak with the tone of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons. No, Paul look the evildoer right in the eye and called him a son of the devil and enemy of all righteousness. That’s pretty harsh.

 

            After Paul called this man very ugly names, he then pronounced a curse on him that left him without sight. Paul was willing that this man go through hardships because of his opposition to the Lord. Paul did not seem to think that doing so might potentially hinder this man’s salvation. Paul did not try to win this man with kindness. Instead, Paul spoke truth and pronounced a right judgment. The results of Paul’s words and actions were that God was glorified and others came to faith.

 

            Christians, sappy sweetness is not the tool by which we will win the world. Yes, we show love; Jesus commanded us to do so. We are to love each other and the lost world. We are kind as often as we can be. But we do not change dead hearts to living ones by coating all our words and actions with sugar. No, we also must be, like Paul, people with the backbone to stand for what is right and to speak the truth. We need to be willing to call sin exactly what it is, even if that offends a lost person. No, we cannot assume that lost people will live by Christian standards. However, neither should we think that we do the lost any good by pretending that all the things that they do that oppose God are OK.

 

            It is a hard line we have to walk. How do we speak the truth in love, even when that truth is harsh? How do we know when to speak with grace and when to call sin out? The answer to this question is wisdom. We need God’s wisdom. We need God’s Spirit. We need to walk closely with our Lord and prayerfully ask him to give us the right desires. We need to ask God to help us to know when to speak strongly and when to speak sweetly. We desperately need our Lord to guide us and to give us the grace and the courage to do what needs to be done to help the lost world know the truth of God.

Genesis 45:4-5 (ESV)

4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

 

                We find ourselves looking at a tense scene. Joseph has again met his brothers (brothers who had sold him into slavery years earlier) and told his brothers who he is. As you might imagine, these men who formerly hated and abused their brother are terrified to see him sitting in a position of power over them. Joseph literally holds their lives in his hands. He has the power to have them thrown into prison or executed.

 

                What would you do if you were Joseph? How would you feel? Would you want to get back at these men for the hurt they caused you? Would you want them to suffer to make up for the suffering you went through? Would you want to gloat over the fact that you are now the master while they are in your power? Would you want to remind them that your dreams from twenty-something years ago were indeed true?

 

                Joseph says something to his brothers that is unheard of. Though his brothers did him great damage, Joseph says, “do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.” How in the world can Joseph look at these men and tell them not to worry about the wrong that they did?

 

                Some would presume that Joseph saw the sadness in his brothers when they talked about him thinking he was gone forever. Some would say that Joseph realized that his brothers were truly sorry. Maybe so, but the fact still remains that many of us would have far too bitter a heart to even consider the state of the brothers’ hearts. Many of us would be out for blood the moment we found out that we had them in our power.

 

                Not Joseph. Joseph had a heart that was tender and forgiving. He does not pretend that nothing wrong happened, but something about Joseph gave him the perspective that he needed to be able to tell his brothers that he was not holding a grudge against them for what they had done to him. What was it? Joseph tells us when he says, “for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Joseph was looking at his situation with his brothers from a bigger-picture perspective. He saw that God had a bigger plan than any of them could have dreamed. Joseph understood that, though his brothers were terribly wrong, totally evil in what they did to him, God had something greater that he was accomplishing. Though all that the brothers did to Joseph was evil, God was working all things together for good.

 

                What about you? Do you have that kind of perspective that we see in Joseph? Can you look back over your life, even at the things that hurt you deeply, and see that even your pains and struggles and hardships are tools that God has used to teach you of his mercy and grace? Can you recognize that the shadows that you have walked through have opened for you opportunities to glorify God, to enjoy his kindness, to tell others of his provision?

 

                Let’s face it, all of us have been through hardships at one point or another. We have all been wronged by people whether they were family members, coworkers, or maybe even fellow church members. How can we be like Joseph and have hearts that are eager to forgive?

 

                The best answer that I can give, and the one that I think the Bible bears out for us time and time again, is that we must have a larger-than-this-life view of our circumstances. We must understand that God is in the picture and not absent.

 

                Picture in your mind the two beams of a cross. One is vertical and the other horizontal. Before you can be ready to become a person who offers horizontal forgiveness, forgiveness between fellow human beings, you must first be a person who understands his or her vertical relationship with God. Consider where you stand before God. God is perfect, and endlessly so. All of us have fallen short of God’s perfection, and endlessly so. God, as a just judge, rightly could have punished us by casting us into hell forever for the endless offense of our rebellion against him. But God, rather than throwing us into hell at our first sin, chose to send his own Son to earth to die as a substitute for the sins of people like you and me. God moved to forgive us.

 

                If you have been forgiven by an endlessly holy God, forgiven an endless offense, how can you not, before God, desire to offer forgiveness to those who have wronged you. You may not be able to actually transact forgiveness with them. You may never get a chance to talk with them. They may never choose to repent and agree with you that they need to be forgiven. But, when we recognize who God is and how great is our own forgiveness, we, in our hearts, will begin to learn that, before God, we do not hold grudges against those who have hurt us in the past.

 

                Trust me, I know this can take time. None of us becomes instantly perfect when we are saved by Jesus. None of us will find this heart change easy. Some will battle with this stuff for years. Joseph, as you may remember, had not seen his brothers for twenty years. But, as Joseph saw from a bigger picture perspective, he understood that the wrong that his brothers did him actually helped to put Joseph in the position he now occupied. Joseph knew that he was able to help others, to save lives and protect his family, because of the horrible circumstances that he had been put through.

 

                So, what should we learn from Joseph’s example here? Keep an eternal perspective in order to have a soft and forgiving spirit. Instead of looking at the short-term, small picture, pray that God will remind you of his eternal plan. Ask him to let you think beyond the bounds of a few years, or even a few decades. Ask God to show you that, in eternity, we will see that he truly worked all things, even our most painful things, together for good according to his plan.