Author: Proclaiming His Goodness

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the alter to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”    -Leviticus 17:11

All throughout the Old Testament, animal sacrifice seems to have taken an important role in the Israelite’s worship to God; but where does its real significance lie? Animal sacrifice had several purposes, but one of the biggest reasons God commanded it was to point to the sacrifice that His Son would one day make for all of mankind.

The penalty of sin is death, and nobody can approach God without having their sins covered in innocent blood; blood gives us life because it speaks of the death we deserve. Hebrews 9:22 says, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

There are only two ways to get to Heaven; 1) live a perfect, sinless life, or 2), accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. Nothing we can do will ever make our Spiritually dead ‘flesh’ come alive, so Jesus’ offer to us is this: “Let me give you life and cover you with my blood; I am the perfect sacrificial lamb, slain once and for all. I died to give you life, won’t you take it?”

I don’t think Leviticus 17:11 was just referring to the animal sacrifice that happened in the temple; I think it was pointing to the life Jesus’ blood gives to our dead flesh. I absolutely cannot wait for Heaven and the time when I will be rid of my sin nature, but in the meantime, I am more than grateful for the assurance I have through His blood that I will one day stand in His presence. What a day that will be!

David and Goliath: the story of a teenage boy defeating the odds and saving the day by taking out the enemy’s champion with a slingshot, right?

Yes and no.

Yes, David defeated a man who had terrorized the entire Israelite army for over a month; no, he didn’t go to the battlefield with a slingshot as his only weapon.

If you back up in the story, you will find that the writer mentions David having spent time in the wilderness tending to his father’s sheep… and why is that important? Because that, in a manner of speaking, was God’s ‘basic training’ for him; proof of this is found in David’s dialogue with King Saul and the soldiers of the Israelite army. David told Saul about his escapades with wild animals during his time in the wilderness, and in his conversation with the soldiers, he compared Goliath to these wild animals that he had killed with God’s help.  The wilderness had not only taught David to fight the elements, it had taught him to trust God; when David refused Saul’s personal armor it wasn’t because of his superior ability with a slingshot, it was because he had learned to trust in God, and when he turned down the king’s weapons, he was proclaiming this to every person watching him.

Every one of us spends time in life’s ‘wildernesses’; we all experience times when there is no clear direction or any end in sight to the season of life we are in, but it is during times like these when we can either draw close to God of pull away from Him. There are seasons of life, and while I may not particularly like where I am at any given point in time, God is just getting me ready for the next thing He has for me. God will not throw me into the battle and give me giants to fight without first preparing me, and what truly makes all the difference during the battle is when I allow Him to be there with me.

 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

If I had a dollar for ever time I’ve thought “I wish there was a manual for this”, I’d be a millionaire; and isn’t this the way I treat my relationship with God all too often, like there should be a pamphlet that completely describes His plans and His ways to me?

There is nothing wrong with the desire for clear directions from Him, but I get into trouble when I expect Him to fit in a box that I can file away on a shelf for later reference – if I can remember where I put it. When I treat my relationship with God like this, I am acting like I am in control, which is really quite laughable when I stop to think about it. He has given us the Bible to tell us who He is and what He has done for us, but there are still a number of things about Him that are a mystery.

He is the creator of a universe that is orderly and systematic to the deepest level, but that doesn’t mean that He can be categorized along with His creation; on the contrary, the creator of such an awesome thing cannot be anything but above it all. Our God knows no bounds, and there is nothing that can hold Him back; He is not predictable or methodical in His ways, and we will never know everything about any one aspect of him or the way He operates.

There are no words in the language of men to describe Him; there are no words to adequately describe His love for me; there are no words to describe the depth of my gratitude to Him for creating, saving and sustaining me; and, there are no words to adequately describe the glories of Heaven where I will spend eternity with Him.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver”  -Proverbs 25:11  NKJV

I don’t know how something so simply said can give me the desire to keep going when everything in me is telling me to stop because I’m not getting anywhere, but this verse did just that for me recently.

Maybe it’s the ‘winter blues’, but I’ve been stuck in a rut for a little while; I’ve been feeling dry and discouraged, and more than a little sorry for myself. But as I sat in church a few weeks ago, my pastor quoted this verse and briefly talked about how it spurred him on in his writing whenever he felt ready to give up. At first, I was confused; when I hit a wall with my writing, I have to walk away from the keyboard or I will be fighting the urge to break it. But as I listened further, I realized what he was saying is that the verse is what calls him back to the keyboard to push through the wall because of its promise that the end result of choosing the right words is a beautiful picture.

If nothing else, writing for this blog has taught me to keep digging for the treasure God has given me and not settle for the ordinary stones that I find along the way. Writing is not easy, and neither are any of the other gifts God gives us – He only gives good gifts, and it is our job to be good stewards of them. These gifts and abilities He gives us are not easy to unearth; if they were, anybody could get to them and they would not be the special and unique gifts from God that they are. I just need to keep searching for the right words, because it’ll be worth it in the end.

I’m pretty sure that the next thing going up on the wall by my desk will be a reminder of this verse, because I don’t ever want to forget it.

In my mind’s eye, my picture of focus is that of a surveyor looking through a transit; even just a fraction of a degree off point will not be noticeable at first, but the further you walk, the further you will get from the line you’re supposed to be walking.

Unfortunately, I can relate more than I’d care to admit; I’ve been realizing recently how my focus has been off in a few key areas of my life. I have gotten lazy and selfish with a number of things, and I have not been giving my best to the people around me. These problems started when I got tired, went into ‘autopilot’ and stopped looking to God for direction.

As I continued on this train of thought, I realized that America has a similar focus problem that stems from an identity issue, because somewhere along the line our focus shifted from God. When that happened, we lost sight of who we are because we lost sight of our Creator; when we do not know who we are, we cannot be who we were made to be, and we get even more misdirected when we look to the wrong source of wisdom for these answers.

We will only see our need for God’s grace when He removes the scales from our eyes and we see how desperately broken we are; in the meantime, people are on a fruitless mission to find purpose and satisfaction with band aids to try to fix the mess we’ve made of ourselves. It really saddens me to see how many people have convinced themselves that they are good enough to have earned God’s favor; to them, I say that the only thing we’ve ever earned is an eternity in hell.

In every area of life, focus is paramount; no artist, sports player, or worker can go anywhere without it. My question is, if focus is such a big issue, why is focus on our Creator and Savior so easily and readily put aside?

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”    -1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Every Christian knows this passage; but how does it apply when somebody I love hurts me so badly that my gut twists just thinking about them? How am I supposed to love them?

I’ve asked myself that question recently, and I haven’t found the three-step process yet; but I did find 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, and God answered my questions through these verses in an unexpected way by reminding me some things I hope to never forget again.

He reminded me of where I was when He saved me, and showed me that the principles in this passage are the principles with which He loves me. He reminded me that He is the only one who loves perfectly, and therefore, the only one who can teach me to love. He reminded me that the best way to love somebody is to trust Him with them, then follow the outline He’s given me in my interaction with them.

Simply put, loving people is doing what Jesus did while He lived on this earth; He never compromised the truth, but He never once cut Himself off from the people who didn’t love Him. Love isn’t a noun, it’s a verb, and the biggest demonstration of love was Jesus’ sacrifice to pay our debt. If He loves me that much, I know I can trust Him to teach me to love other people.

Committing to love somebody no matter what is so much more than I can ever do on my own, but I am not alone. I have asked Jesus to lead me on the journey, and His love and patience towards me when I try to take the lead is the biggest example to me of how I am to love everybody around me.

Love isn’t rational or logical. Leaving Heaven’s majesty to live a life on this sin sick planet and pay a debt He didn’t owe wasn’t something He wasn’t obligated to do, and it just doesn’t make any sense. Can the people I love say the same about the way I love?

Jesus, make me more like You!

I had other plans for this blog post, but they quickly changed when I found out that somebody I had known died very suddenly and tragically, and you are going to hear my thoughts on it, because I couldn’t get it off my brain long enough to finish what I had started to write. I have always tried to keep in mind that I don’t know when God will call me Home, but this incident made it very real to me and clearly showed me a few things I’ve been neglecting.

Even though I’d known her since I was seven years old, I never knew her very well; but what got to me at first is that she was ten days older than I am. As I lay in bed that night trying to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about the situation; then as my mind wandered, I thought, what if something like that happened to me? That would – literally – be the best thing! I have been so incredibly blessed in my life on this earth, but I really can’t wait to meet my Savior and see my friends and family who are there. It was at this point in my thought process that my heart really broke for this girl and her family. Because I have accepted Jesus’ sacrifice as the only payment that can cover the cost of my sin, I have my ticket to spend eternity in the presence of a sinless and righteous God, so I know where I am going; but my friend and her family don’t have that same assurance. But really, their situation is no different than the majority of the people on this planet, and this incident was nothing short of a wake up call to me to live like I have been saved from sin and death. God gave me the gift of eternity with Him and a mission to tell the world about it; should I accept one and not the other?

I don’t think that many people will dispute the premise that this life is a war. There is a constant and unrelenting battle being fought between the forces of good and evil every minute of every day, and I joined God’s side when I accepted Him as Lord of my life.

However, if I am going to be a good soldier in His army and bring glory to His name, I need to start by knowing the battle. No commander would think of going into battle without first studying the enemy and finding their strategy and weak spots, and no army is successful in battle without each soldier knowing and fulfilling their position; similarly, I need to know who the enemy is and how to fight it if I am going to be effective.

When Jesus saved me, He cut my old nature loose of its control over me; then, He created a new capacity in my heart and mind so I can know, love and serve Him. God didn’t say, “Come follow me”, give me directions, and leave me to limp along with a patched up, sin defiled nature; he gave me a new nature and the ability to have a relationship with Him. A friend of mine said it like this: “I’m so glad He makes things new, instead of just trying to clean us up. It’s like an old car; you can fix it up as much as you want, but it’s still an old car, and it’s just going to keep breaking down. This new nature is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, but it is also the source of our biggest battle. There are two natures in us fighting for supremacy, and the one we exercise more will grow more.

The battle will not end until I reach Heaven my sin nature is eradicated, but I imagine my struggle will pale significantly in my mind when I see the scars in Jesus’ hands and feet and when I realize how big a price He paid for me. I know how the story ends, so until it does, my job is to fight faithfully in God’s army.

 

 

 

I have a confession to make; at the beginning of the season, my heart was not in the right place to truly celebrate Christmas this year.

Yes, I grew up in Church hearing the Christmas story multiple times every December. I’ve read the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke a hundred times, and I’ve been told at least two hundred times that Christmas is really about Jesus coming to earth and being born in a dirty barn; but that is only part of the story, because Christmas is really just as much about a Savior on a cross as it is of a baby in a manger. Jesus’ miraculous birth and the events surrounding it don’t have much meaning or purpose without the rest of the story. Our timeless and boundless God came to us so we can have a way to get to Him; we lose the meaning and the wonder of the ‘how’ when we ignore the ‘why’. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and that’s everybody on planet Earth.

So please, don’t make the mistake I did; don’t let the season fly by without remembering just how much manger and the cross are intertwined. Don’t bend your knee to the baby in Bethlehem and forget that He came to be our Savior at Calvary. Don’t stop at the manger; you will miss part of the story and the meaning of the celebration.

One of my favorite authors is Max Lucado, and the first book of his that I read was a children’s book called, “You Are Special”. The story is part of a collection of books centered on a village of wooden people called ‘wemmicks’. They were carved by a woodworker named Eli who lived in a house on a hill overlooking the town he had created. In the story, the wemmicks spent their days handing out stickers; the talented wemmicks received gold stars, and the clumsy wemmicks were given gray dots. No matter how hard one particular wemmick named Punchinello tried, he always fell into the latter category; in fact, he became so covered in gray dots that he would rarely venture outside his house. But one day, he met a wemmick named Lucia who had no stickers; stars and dots alike simply would not stick to her wooden frame. When Punchinello asked her why, her answer was simple; she told him that stickers wouldn’t stay on her because she spent time with Eli the woodcarver each day. The thought of visiting the woodworker was terrifying, but Punchinello’s desperation to be loved and accepted won out over his fear; that night, he slipped out of the town and walked up the path to the house on the hill. He managed to push open the massive door and peek inside, but he started to turn back when he saw all the tools on the woodworker’s bench; then a voice called his name, and Punchinello stopped in his tracks. He had never heard such a deep and strong voice so full of love and tenderness. In the conversation that followed, Punchinello heard for the first time that he was special and that he was not a mistake. As Punchinello chose to believe those words, his stickers began to fall off, because Eli’s opinion was the only one that mattered to him.

Unfortunately, Punchinello isn’t the only one looking for acceptance. Everybody will do almost anything to be loved, but there is only one thing that can truly fill that hole in us; our Creator. I have made more than my share of mistakes trying to fit in and be accepted, and I have found that I am continually disappointed and frustrated when I allow people’s words and actions towards me to determine what I believe; but when I allow God’s Word to be the ground I stand on, I have a firm foundation in His unchanging character and the peace He provides to everybody who places their trust in Him.