Dry ground of Negev Desert, Israel, Author MinoZig (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)
Though He parted the Red Sea for them, the Lord did not lead the Israelites directly to the Promised Land. Instead, they spent 40 years in the desert learning to trust Him.
That is how it works. Over and over, we are drawn to Him in need. The more self-reliant we think we are, the less we have learned.
God uses our very needs as His tools. This is not abandonment – nor even “hands off” management – but loving care, based on an intimate knowledge of each of us.
Wherever we may be in our lives, He is with us, guiding our steps with the goal of bringing us home.
“You in Your mercy have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation” (Ex. 15: 13).
Lord God, You parted one sea and stilled the waters of another. Powers and principalities are as nothing before You. This is the strength You offer us.
Like Moses before us, we call on Your name. You have purchased and will plant us in the mountain of Your inheritance. We praise and thank You for all You have given us, and all we know You will accomplish in our lives.
Amen
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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1).
Having crafted us for the law, Lord Jesus, You filled us with words. We generate them. We analyze them. We interpret and reinterpret, define and redefine, moderate and mangle them. We utilize them both as swords and shields – to serve and skewer; to threaten and placate.
With this powerful tool comes great responsibility.
Engrave Your name on our hearts, Lord, that we may use words for their ultimate end of praising You and spreading the Gospel.
Amen
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“ ‘And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another’ ” (Matt. 24: 10).
It is an increasing challenge to remain faithful. Jesus prophesied that many would offend one another and worse, as the end of days approached (Matt. 24: 10, 12). The walk of faith, in any case, gets more challenging the farther along toward Calvary we go.
It can be difficult to locate a Bible believing church. It can be difficult even to find other Christians with whom to fellowship. Devout Christians can feel isolated, as if fighting a battle of one on a forgotten hilltop – sometimes against believers and non-believers, both.
Mature Faith
Faith is a journey. Consequently, not all Christians are equally mature in their faith.
- Some are simply new to the faith, and inexperienced in it.
- Although sincere, a few may hold mistaken beliefs, along with the Gospel message that Jesus died for our sins.
- Many are uninstructed, and unaware what they lack – however long they may have been Christian.
- And a number claiming to be Christian are not, thereby causing enormous harm when they violate Christian tenets. Certain televangelists come to mind.
This range of belief can be a great frustration to more mature Christians – particularly when incorrect statements about doctrine (or practices in conflict with doctrine) draw the ridicule of non-Christians.
We cannot disown our less mature brothers and sisters. That is not what Jesus would have us do. Their faith is not for us to judge (Rom. 14: 10). And there may be room for growth on our own part. Read more…
An Open Fortune Cookie, Photo by Lorax (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported, GFDL 1.2 or later)
We are surrounded by attempts to manipulate the fates, and pierce the veil between this world and the next.
Major newspapers run daily horoscope columns. “Lucky” buddhas can be found in all sizes. Feng shui is discussed seriously, and Wicca considered a legitimate belief system. Chain letters abound. Psychics advertise openly. Charlatans – and others sincere, but deluded – even claim to speak with the dead. Read more…
As Christians, we view the Old Testament from the perspective of the New. We know Salvation was accomplished. The Messiah in the Person of Jesus Christ arrived some 2000 ago, fulfilling all Messianic prophecies to the letter.
What, however, was the understanding of an afterlife, in the Old Testament?
Resurrection – Release from Death’s Snare
There are certainly despairing statements contained in the Old Testament.
“I am counted with them that go down to the pit; I am as a man who has no strength, adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand” (Ps. 88: 4-5).
“Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (Eccl. 9: 10).
Such statements tend to be a response to circumstance, rather than a reasoned analysis of the evidence for or against an afterlife.
The statements are often despairing of life, itself, more so than of the existence of an afterlife. The approach by King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes is particularly world weary.
In some instances, the negative statements may well be comparing the fate of a righteous man, i.e. the author (who can expect to be resurrected), with that of an unrighteous – who will be condemned and forgotten, cut off from God by reason of his misdeeds.
The Book of Job is in sharp contrast with this. Writing around 2000 BC at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Job – a “blameless and upright” man – makes a powerful statement in favor of life after death, despite his own physical and emotional torment:
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19: 25-27).
At the opposite end of the spectrum of human emotion, the prophet, Isaiah (who writes eloquently about the Suffering Servant), about 1300 years after Job, makes this joyful prediction:
“Your dead shall live; together with my dead bodythey shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead” (Is. 26: 19).
Census figures being released in the Fall are expected to show that poverty has risen to the highest levels since the 1960s. A rate of 15.2% – 15.7% would erase the gains of President Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty.”
Poverty is spreading across groups from the underemployed middle class to the poorest of the poor.
Long-term trends such as globalization, outsourcing, increased automation, and reduced unionization have combined to push median household income lower. These trends are not expected to reverse any time soon.
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SIG Prosemi-automatic pistol, Author Augustas Didžgalvis, (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
Twelve died in Colorado today, victims of a shooting spree at a movie theater. Dozens more were injured. There has been no motive uncovered.
“The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord” (Ps. 112: 6-7).
Lord God, evil has once again revealed its face. But in evil times or good, we trust in You.
We lift up to You those who have died, Father, their lives cruelly ended. We lift up to You the injured, some perhaps maimed or scarred for life. We lift up to You the mothers and fathers, the husbands, wives, and children of all these.
You understand grief, Father. You saw Your Son lifted up on a cross for the sake of a lost world. Extend Your comfort now to those grieving and in pain, that they might know You as we do.
Amen
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“The Gleaners” by Jean-Francois Millet (1857), Musee D’Orsay (Accession No. 592), Source Project Yorck: 10,000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (ISBN 3936122202), Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH (PD-Art l Old-100)
Most of our days are ordinary ones. We go into the office, meet with clients, deal with vendors and personnel issues. We return phone calls; respond to faxes and emails.
We fight traffic and the never ending battle with paperwork; reply to motions; attempt to schedule depositions.
We become experts on obscure statutes; review police reports and medical records – some dry, some so horrific we could never have imagined ourselves dealing with them. All in the course of our ordinary days.
A few of us try cases, and have the scars to show for it. Rarely though can any of us know the full impact of our lives.
So, too, with Ruth. A pagan, Ruth chose to follow her widowed mother-in-law back to Judah. Once there, Ruth’s days were occupied working in the fields. No one could have predicted, when she married Boaz, that Ruth would become the great-grandmother of King David.
She had already entered the lineage of the Messiah.
“Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz… ” (Ruth 2:3).
Lord Jesus, we labor in Your fields, unaware of what fruit our efforts may yield. Pour your grace out on our ordinary days, that there may be a great harvest.
Amen
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Did Abraham believe in resurrection? Did Moses? Whether the idea of resurrection is contained in the Old Testament or not has been a cause of controversy since the first academics arrived on the scene.
The church father, Augustine, gave us this maxim: “In the Old Testament the New is concealed; in the New, the Old is revealed.” While by no means claiming to be dispositive, this article will examine passages in the Old Testament which seem to point toward a belief in resurrection.
An argument can be made, at the very outset, that the entire Old Testament is a story of death and resurrection. The human race is destroyed by a flood, but reborn through Noah and his family. Joseph “dies” to his old life, when he is sold into slavery. But he is reborn as a powerful official in Egypt. Former slaves of Egypt die in the desert, yet are reborn as a new nation.
Either these patterns by the thirty or more authors of the Old Testament are coincidental, or those authors saw in the story of the Israelites, themselves, the hope of a life beyond death.
The text of the Old Testament makes the following points on the subject of life after death:
- God is able to overcome death.
- We will be resurrected.
- God will punish evil doers and reward the righteous in the afterlife.
- Our close relationship with God will continue in the afterlife.
More Powerful than Death
Around 1000 BC, Hannah, the mother of the prophet, Samuel, described God’s power over life and death this way:
“ ‘The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up’ ” (1 Sam. 2: 6).
About 575 BC, the prophet, Ezekiel, made this seminal prophecy about the nation Israel. While fulfillment of the prophecy was dependent on the Lord, couched within its terms is the concept of resurrection:
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and…set me in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones…[T]here were very many…and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ So I answered, ‘O Lord God, You know.’ Again He said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!…I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord” ’ ” (Ezek. 37: 1-6)
The Books of First and Second Kings were written around 560 BC. Israel had been conquered by Assyria around 722 BC, and Judah by Babylon in 586 BC. These would have been momentous events. And yet two of the miracles recorded – by prophets, Elijah and Elisha, no less – involve the resurrection of children, a clear indication of God’s mercy toward the least of these.
“Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, ‘See, your son lives!’ ” (1 Kin. 17: 22-23).
“When Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed. He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Lord…and the child opened his eyes” (2 Kin. 4: 32-33, 35).
Our culture is enthralled with entertainment. We have TVs in every room with hundreds of channels available. We own laptops, mp3 players, DVD players, tablets, ebook readers, and smart phones. Our children play video games nonstop, and watch movies in the car. Every moment is occupied.
Henri Nouwen writes in “The Wounded Healer” that loneliness can be God’s means of preparing the heart for ministry:
“Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness…But perhaps the painful awareness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence…”
Loneliness is not an invitation to despair. Rather, it enlarges our capacity to feel for others, and encourages us to turn to the One who alone can meet all our needs.
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world do I give to you” (John 14: 27).
Lord Jesus, there is little peace to be found in our day. The noise around us is deafening. Whether we are alone or in a crowd; at home or at work; overwhelmed by our burdens or in determined search of pleasure, loneliness can find us despite our distractions.
Still the chaos around us, and fill our hearts with the peace only You can give.
Amen
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
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A Lawyer's Prayers 