Archive for January, 2010

In all directions

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Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. – Exodus 2:12, emphasis added.

At this point in his life, Moses has been raised within the sheltering of the royal palace as the adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter. We can only guess from his later encounter at the burning bush that he hasn’t been raised with much of a concept of the God of the Hebrews, just of the gods of the Egyptians. Whatever the case may be, his morality at this point had nothing against killing his granddaddy’s employee, as long as he didn’t get caught.

But oh, did he get caught. The next day a unnamed Hebrew called him out for killing the Egyptian. Moses knew the secret was out, and worried that everyone knew what he had done (Exodus 2:14). The Pharaoh also found out about the incident, and tried to kill Moses. So Moses became an outlaw, on the run from his home and his people.

This approach to ethics sounds so familiar. Rather than having integrity despite who is watching, so often the mentality is that it’s OK if you don’t get caught. But even when Moses looked in all directions, he was found out. In the same way, our sin today has a way of not remaining hidden. (See Matthew 10:26, Luke 8:17, and Luke 12:2 in context for verses that are claimed to support this idea.) His sin was seen by man and by God, and we are at the very least seen by God (Psalm 139), if not also by the people around us.

So what? What can Moses’ story teach us besides to not tick off the Pharaoh? We can learn to have integrity in all that we do, because the consequences will come whether or not the action was done in what we believe to be privacy. We should strive instead for the great consequences of following God completely.

Proverbs 5, the proverb of the immoral woman’s house, also has some thoughts about sin. Specifically referring to the adulteress, it says to stay away from her and to not go near the door of her house, because if you do, you will lose all you have achieved. In this same way, the closer we get to sin, the more our achievements are eaten away, and in the end, we have lost all that was important to us, but have gained nothing. On the other hand, Jesus calls us to lose everything that is important to us (Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 5:1-11), but we gain eternal life and gain a relationship with Him. Both involve losing what’s important to us, but the Jesus option has a far better outcome in this life and the next. If I had to choose between Jesus and sin even just on the selfishness of what I could get out of it, I would still pick Jesus because in the end when all else I hold dear is consumed, I still have Him.

Then next time you’re looking in all directions, don’t forget the direction that God watches you from.

-Zachariah

All for good

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At the end of Genesis 49, Jacob dies after instructing his sons about where and how to bury him. After their father’s death, Joseph’s brothers “became fearful” (Gen. 50:15), thinking that Joseph would now take revenge on them for all the evil they did against him. So, they send messages seeking forgiveness, asking on behalf of themselves and their fathers to be forgiven for wronging Joseph, and then they come straight to Joseph and offer themselves up as slaves. Joseph is not angry though. Read his words in Genesis 50:19-20: “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.”

Joseph was almost killed by his brothers, almost left to die at the bottom of a well by his brothers, and sold into slavery by his brothers. While a slave, he was falsely accused of raping his master’s wife and sent to jail. But Joseph is not angry; he sees that there is a big picture behind it all. Despite how wicked his brothers were, God intended for it to happen so that Joseph would be put in the position to save the lives of the people affected by the famine. This idea is echoed throughout the Bible. Esther is forced into the King’s harem and becomes Queen of Persia so that she is in a position to save the Jews from being slaughtered. The Christ himself is brutally beaten, whipped, mocked, tortured, and crucified, all so that He could save humanity. The difference in the attitudes of the people who suffer for the eventual good is how much they trust God has a big picture in which he intends all for good. Joseph saw the big picture and was able to have joy and thank God rather than be bitter and angry against his brothers. Esther eventually saw the big picture although she didn’t at first. Jesus knew the entire picture and knew He had to die for the greater good. When Jesus tells Peter to “get thee behind me, Satan” in Matthew 16:23, he is reprimanding Peter because he is seeing things “merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Human point of view is focused on the evils of now. God’s point of view is focused on how everything happens all for good, whether immediate or eventual.

This is still a very real factor of our faith today. Christians, myself included, can get so hung up on the despairs of the here and now that they miss the big picture of the good God is painting with our life stories. Illness, famine, poverty, death are all very real, but at the same time we cannot let them trap us and blind us from the bigger picture of all for good.

-Zachariah

Sidetracked

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Today feels busy.

It really shouldn’t… today is the most restful day of the week by normal standards… after all, this is the closest most Christians get to the Jewish concept of the Sabbath. Maybe it’s just that, in the time that we should have to just God and ourselves, Satan invades with distractions and busyness and disappointments that take us away from God and our time with Him that should be His alone.

One of the big distractions of life is when you pray but feel no answer. Psalm 20 echoes this desperation. This psalm doesn’t take place after everything has happened right for David, but rather while he is yet to feel an answer. In verses 1-4 you can feel this… the words are about God answering your cry in the time of trouble, keeping you safe from harm, sending you help and strength, and making your plans succeed.

But, in a twist, David switches topics from prayers being answered to boasting in the Lord. But these must be connected somehow, if they’re in the same song, right? Psalm 20:7-8 reads, “Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God. Those nations will fall down and collapse, but we will rise up and stand firm.” I haven’t run into any nations boasting in their chariots and horses in quite a while, but I run into people boasting in the name of the Lord on a daily basis. Why? Because His name stands firm. Because by His strength we can rise up when others would fall down and collapse.

So, that’s one distraction. But what about the rest? Proverbs says to not get distracted (Proverbs 4:27), but what helps us to do that? Solomon says in verse 23 that guarding our hearts is what helps us not veer towards evil. Along with this comes the two hints, to avoid perverse talk and corrupt speech, and to fix our eyes on what lies before us. Seems simple, but gets missed if we don’t take faith in action seriously… especially the corrupt speech. People can set goals okay… it’s January, you probably have made a resolution or two. But speech is not something I see as being guarded by the Christians around me. We’re all still a worldly bunch, and the words, which Jesus calls the overflow of our hearts in Matthew 15, are impure. It’s a sidetrack from our pursuit of God.

There is no clean finish to this post, because there’s no clean finish to the problem of humanity being sidetracked from running after God. Hopefully this has given you a little bit more to think on and act on today.

-Zachariah

Hearts are far

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Matthew 15 includes a story about the disciples of Jesus getting on the bad side of the Pharisees when they were eating without washing their hands. This, they said, was a violation of age-old tradition, which meant they weren’t ceremonially clean when they ate. Jesus flips the blame back on the Pharisees, asking them how they can use their traditions of Korban to encourage the breaking of the fifth commandment, to honor the parents. And then, Jesus, who knows the Word way better than the Pharisees, quotes Isaiah 29:13 from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible to the Pharisees: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”

Our lives and our worship both run on a lot of man made ideas. Are we the same way, giving God a lip service while hiding a black heart that cares more about following tradition than worshiping God? We cannot worship if our hearts are far away from God; as it says, our worship is a farce if we live this way. A friend of mine also blogged about this today out of Ezekiel 33:31-32 over at Consuming Zeal @ Blogspot. Ezekiel wrote, “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.”

With our mouths we express honor and devotion, but our hearts are far away and greedy for the treasures of the earth. Man-made ideas and traditions that are founded by sinful hearts take us away from the purity of true reverence for God. People greedy for unjust gain and treasures of the earth are missing out on what King David called “a great reward” for those who obey the words of God (Psalm 19:11). I doubt there is any coincidence here that Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jesus talked about this… throughout history, devotion has been missing. We’ve learned how to say the right words, but the value of living out those words is taking a backseat. We are mask Christians… our spirituality is clean when you see the outside, but hidden away is not what you would believe from the words you heard.

Today’s reading also included so much more I’ll tell you about in the coming days or the next time January 23 rolls around. Read for yourselves about how the words of the mouth defile us (Matthew 15:10-20), the value of the Words of God (Psalm 19:7-11), and how much Egyptians were willing to sacrifice for life in Genesis 47. That story is particularly intriguing: the Egyptians gave all their money, all their belonging, all their land, and even themselves as slaves just so they could survive the famine… and yet how much are we willing to sacrifice for God, who sustains us throughout this life and the next?

Think on this… and better yet, act on it. Christianity needs people who act on their faith… who live their lives like they’ve been given life to the fullest and life abundantly.

-Zachariah

The best of all the land

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In Genesis 44-45, the brothers of Joseph are trapped in a predicament: it looks like Benjamin has stolen the silver cup of divination that belongs to the second-in-command of Egypt, Joseph, who is using their reaction to their brother’s imprisonment to judge their hearts. When he sees that Judah is willing to give away his life for the sake of his brother, Joseph knows that they have changed and reveals himself to them, forgiving them and blessing them. I’m going to once  again draw a few more analogies between this and the story of the grace we have received from God because of Jesus.

1. Anguish to the Father

Judah was on a mission for his father to protect Benjamin, and when his mission gets compromised because Benjamin is being put in prison, he steps in and clearly states his mission, and then asks to sacrifice himself so that his mission could get accomplished, asks to be jailed so that Benjamin could come home to his father safely. His words translated to English come out as, “I couldn’t bear to see the anguish this would cause my father,” referring to if he did not bring home Benjamin safely.

As Christians, are we ever that concerned about what the Father wants us to do? Are we ever that concerned about the anguish of the Father? I don’t know if I can answer that, but I bet the answer is probably that we are rarely that concerned that we think about the anguish caused by our apathy.

2. Grace says “Come closer”

Just as Joseph, who was giving his brothers grace after they sold him into slavery, drew his brothers close in Genesis 45:4, God wants us closer so He can have us right with Him and give us grace, face to face, from the hand of God to the heart of man.

3. The best of all the land of Egypt, the best of all the blessings of God

Even though the brothers really didn’t deserve anything close to the grace and blessings they received, because of Joseph’s fear for the Lord he was able to show them grace that blessed them with the best of Egypt (which was easily among the best in the world). In Genesis 45:20, the Pharaoh tells all the sons of Israel to not worry about their personal belongings, because the best will be provided them. In the same way, we can afford to not worry about our personal belongings, because God has His best prepared for us, that He lavishes on us according to His purpose of love and our dedication to His purpose.

Grace draws us near and blesses us with things bigger than we could ever get on our own, so let’s not worry about that and instead worry about the anguish of the Father.

-Zachariah