He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1
Submission is almost a dirty word in our modern age. It brings forth images of insane people being ruled by equally insane people who lead them to destruction and death.
I was at a wedding last week and the S word was used in the vows. The formally sedate crowd broke out in nervous laughter. The picture of women who submit to their husbands goes from pathetic to pathological. Men who demand submission of their wives are often rightly suspected of woman abuse.
Church images of submission are full of pastors who have led their congregations into all kinds of perverse actions justified by a twisting of the doctrine of submission.
Unfortunately these images all have a real foundation.
But the Bible does use the S word quite a lot.
Ephesians 5:22-2
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Perhaps I am not alone in asking God to help me understand this passage?
Growing up in Oklahoma in the fifties and sixties this passage was preached on quite often. It seemed like, from the preachers I heard, all the world's problems would have been solved if only these rebellious women would submit!
I never once heard the passages that followed it ever preached on.
Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
I think if there had been as strong an emphasis on this passage as the former it might have been a lot easier for wives to have done what my preachers were saying.
But as I studied this issue of submission I found an even greater truth that is one verse ahead of the "wives submit passage:
Ephesians 5:21
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
As I have checked the Bibles I have seen almost all of them put a space in the text between verse 21 and verse 22. I wonder why? Nothing in the Greek texts requires or even hints at it.
The full passage is about mutual submission. The first concept is to submit to each other. The second part is the particulars of that submission with a view to Jesus and His Bride.
It is not likely that you will ever hear preachers say that Jesus submits himself to his church but he does and he did. He did so when he emptied himself and came to the planet.
Philippians 2:5-8
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
He then proceeded to submit himself on the cross:
Philippians 2:8
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
As Chris Tomlin wrote in his song Jesus Messiah:
He became sin, who knew no sin,
That we might become His righteousness.
He humbled himself and carried the cross,
Love so amazing, love so amazing!
It is amazing love, and amazing submission.
God did not tell wives only to submit to husbands, he told husbands to submit to wives the same way Jesus did for the church. Submission is love.....
Further, He told the whole body of Jesus on Earth to submit to each other in reverential awe (fear) of Him.
Submission is love in action. But it sounds wrong to say it because the word has come to mean something else in English.
What it means today is not what it meant when Paul said it.
We have some hint of what Paul meant in the English word itself.
SUB = under MIT = hand.
SUBMIT in its first English meaning was to be under the hand of another.
It meant to place yourself under the care of another who truly cared for you. It had nothing to do with slavish, mindless obedience. It never meant giving up your right to be lead by influence rather than domination.
When Paul told the church, wives and husbands, slaves and masters, parents and children to submit themselves to each other he wanted them to take on the role of caregivers for each other. He did not intend for them to become slave masters of each other.
It was an invitation to provide a loving place of provision, protection and intimate presence for everyone. It was to give a place to be "under the hand" of God first and each other next.
That is where our first scripture so blesses me.
Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Submission is to be covered by God's Hand. It is to dwell in the place he protects with His own presence.
It is the place of humility.
Peter understood this well:
1 Peter 5:5-7
You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
David so loved being under God's mighty hand. It was the "secret place" where nothing could enter to harm him.
Psalm 89:13
You have a strong arm; Your hand is mighty, Your right hand is exalted
Psalm 27:4-6
One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple. 5 For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock. 6 And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.
To submit to someone is to let them care for you.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.
If someone does not care for you, you should never submit to them.
It is that simple.
A person who is worthy of your placing yourself under their care will care for you in the care of Jesus Christ.
Otherwise you are inviting disaster into your life.
Further, all true submission has a mutuality built into it. We submit ourselves "one to another."
If a person in your life is demanding you submit to him or her, and yet he or she does not have a relationship of submission to you and others, run.....
Godly submission is when two people lay down their lives for each other. They protect each other. They provide for each other. They spend time with each other. They know each other. They love each other.
If submission is asked for or demanded that is one sided it is not submission it is slavery.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
LOVING GOD - A surprising command
Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Mark 12:29
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment.
Loving God is the central issue of our faith.
Before any religious duty, before any work for God can be done in earnest, we must Love God.
The extent of our expected love for Him is clear. We are to love Him in the totality of our being. Every aspect of our being is to love Him - with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might - we are to love Him with everything in us that can love.
It is interesting that the request to love is expressed in a command. In our culture we tend to say, “You cannot demand to be loved.” That is true in the sense that we cannot force a person to love us.
In fact, in the mystery of God’s desire to have love from creatures who could freely love Him, it seems He allowed them to also freely hate Him. I believe this is the mystery of where sin and as a result of sin all of the suffering in the world comes from.
Still God does not ask His children to love Him, he commands them to love Him.
Love is to be the foundation of all righteous actions. Without love, I Corinthians 13 tells us, all of our acts mean little or nothing. God wants to underline this as foundational.
John 15:9-13
"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. 12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
In John 15 Jesus repeats the command to love from another perspective he says that if we love him we will do what he commands.
The Old Testament culture was so conditioned to believe that their actions made them righteous that they had to be commanded concerning their internal motivations to love God.
The New Testament culture was so conditioned to separate their motives from actions that they had to have the opposite message - you say you love God in your heart, it will show in your actions. In the late part of the first century this tendency had so grown that John had to say that if you say you love God but hate your brother you lie!
1 John 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
The point of my thoughts today is first I need to constantly be checking how my culture impacts my thinking. That is not just the secular culture but the religious one. The idea of God commanding me to love Him is strongly outside what most of my religious culture teaches but it is clearly biblical.
Why would God command us to love Him? In the context of Mosaic Judaism it was to counter the force of idolatry. The constant theme of the Old Testament was the competition in the hearts of Israel between God and idols. We hardly can understand this.
The tendency to forsake God for images of wood and stone was the central reason for so much of what God spoke to Israel. They had seen the God of Wonders do miracles that defy imagination. Even while they were in front of a mountain that was ablaze with the Glory of God they were making a golden calf and worshipping it.
God commanded them to love Him for their own good. He knew the tenacity of their hearts to want a God made in their own heart's image of Him. A God of stone is so much easier to deal with than the living God.
We are pretty sure we are above all this because we do not often worship images. But by the time Jesus was giving his command to love a new point of departure from God was in place. It was as tenatious as any prior. The doing of God's bidding grew to be more important than knowing Him. And the knowing of Him, while supposedly connected to every act of life was disconnected from loving others.
They had moved from worshipping stone to having hearts of it.
God was no longer an image to be manipulated He was a means to escape the responsibility of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Fast forward to today. We no longer worry about the command to love..... in fact we embrace it whole heartedly. But as children of post modernism we take the power out of God's radical claim on our lives by simply changing the meaning of the words He uses.
That is why I believe He has had to command each generation to love Him. That is why He has had to say it differently to each generation as well.
The human heart has not really changed so much but its way of continuing to have its own way in the face of the Almighty has.
Today God wants me to know that when I say I love Him it does not mean I have a nice feeling inside towards Him and it ends there. His call to love is a radical call to full surrender of myself in every aspect of my life, thought, will, emotions and spirit to Him. He shows me by the call to follow Jesus to the cross to die to myself and live to Him that I am no longer my own.
He challenges me with His claim of ownership - that I am bought with a price - His own possession purchased by the blood of His Son - to let me know that I no longer have any rights to my own life.
This directly confronts the essence of all the idolatrous movements of the human heart since time began. An Idol is a God we own. The living God is the one who owns us.
When He commands me to love Him he is not giving me the option to remain in charge of my own life. He is making clear that it is not "if I feel like it", or "if I would like to" I might consider the benefits of loving Him. He is saying that He has the right of ownership of me. I am really not my own.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Mark 12:29
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment.
Loving God is the central issue of our faith.
Before any religious duty, before any work for God can be done in earnest, we must Love God.
The extent of our expected love for Him is clear. We are to love Him in the totality of our being. Every aspect of our being is to love Him - with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might - we are to love Him with everything in us that can love.
It is interesting that the request to love is expressed in a command. In our culture we tend to say, “You cannot demand to be loved.” That is true in the sense that we cannot force a person to love us.
In fact, in the mystery of God’s desire to have love from creatures who could freely love Him, it seems He allowed them to also freely hate Him. I believe this is the mystery of where sin and as a result of sin all of the suffering in the world comes from.
Still God does not ask His children to love Him, he commands them to love Him.
Love is to be the foundation of all righteous actions. Without love, I Corinthians 13 tells us, all of our acts mean little or nothing. God wants to underline this as foundational.
John 15:9-13
"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. 12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
In John 15 Jesus repeats the command to love from another perspective he says that if we love him we will do what he commands.
The Old Testament culture was so conditioned to believe that their actions made them righteous that they had to be commanded concerning their internal motivations to love God.
The New Testament culture was so conditioned to separate their motives from actions that they had to have the opposite message - you say you love God in your heart, it will show in your actions. In the late part of the first century this tendency had so grown that John had to say that if you say you love God but hate your brother you lie!
1 John 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
The point of my thoughts today is first I need to constantly be checking how my culture impacts my thinking. That is not just the secular culture but the religious one. The idea of God commanding me to love Him is strongly outside what most of my religious culture teaches but it is clearly biblical.
Why would God command us to love Him? In the context of Mosaic Judaism it was to counter the force of idolatry. The constant theme of the Old Testament was the competition in the hearts of Israel between God and idols. We hardly can understand this.
The tendency to forsake God for images of wood and stone was the central reason for so much of what God spoke to Israel. They had seen the God of Wonders do miracles that defy imagination. Even while they were in front of a mountain that was ablaze with the Glory of God they were making a golden calf and worshipping it.
God commanded them to love Him for their own good. He knew the tenacity of their hearts to want a God made in their own heart's image of Him. A God of stone is so much easier to deal with than the living God.
We are pretty sure we are above all this because we do not often worship images. But by the time Jesus was giving his command to love a new point of departure from God was in place. It was as tenatious as any prior. The doing of God's bidding grew to be more important than knowing Him. And the knowing of Him, while supposedly connected to every act of life was disconnected from loving others.
They had moved from worshipping stone to having hearts of it.
God was no longer an image to be manipulated He was a means to escape the responsibility of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Fast forward to today. We no longer worry about the command to love..... in fact we embrace it whole heartedly. But as children of post modernism we take the power out of God's radical claim on our lives by simply changing the meaning of the words He uses.
That is why I believe He has had to command each generation to love Him. That is why He has had to say it differently to each generation as well.
The human heart has not really changed so much but its way of continuing to have its own way in the face of the Almighty has.
Today God wants me to know that when I say I love Him it does not mean I have a nice feeling inside towards Him and it ends there. His call to love is a radical call to full surrender of myself in every aspect of my life, thought, will, emotions and spirit to Him. He shows me by the call to follow Jesus to the cross to die to myself and live to Him that I am no longer my own.
He challenges me with His claim of ownership - that I am bought with a price - His own possession purchased by the blood of His Son - to let me know that I no longer have any rights to my own life.
This directly confronts the essence of all the idolatrous movements of the human heart since time began. An Idol is a God we own. The living God is the one who owns us.
When He commands me to love Him he is not giving me the option to remain in charge of my own life. He is making clear that it is not "if I feel like it", or "if I would like to" I might consider the benefits of loving Him. He is saying that He has the right of ownership of me. I am really not my own.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Monday, June 21, 2010
An Everlasting Love
Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
How wrong we see God when we understand Him as less than what He is:
1 John 4:7-9 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
The Bible says "God is love."
It does not say God has love.
It does not say God's character is to love.
It says "God is love."
He is the definition of love.
You see behind God there is nothing else. There is not a set of standards that God Himself is subject to. There is no ideal called love that we can compare God to. There is no higher authority than God. God is the standard by which everything else is considered.
God did not have to be love. He could have been hateful. Many think He is. He could have been selfish. He could have created the world for nothing more than His own pleasure.
When people say that there could be no God because of the existence of evil I have often wondered what my friend Harvey Katz once asked an atheist after he made such a statement. He said, "Who told you God had to be good?"
This is pivotal. God could still be God and be evil. The presence of evil does not demand that there is no God. It just gives the possibility that God may not be what we think is good.
I would suggest that believing in a God that hates is not inconceivable as many people believe in just such a God. And in fact God could have been hateful. And if He was so He would still be God.
How thankful I am that He is not hateful. He is love. He is the very essence of kindness, care, generosity and compassion.
The other wonderful message in today's meditation is that His love is everlasting.
It never ends.
I don't know about you but my love, as strong as it may be, runs out if tested to great limits. Were it not for God I would not even have real love.
I don't have such a great memory these days but I vividly remember what I was like before I knew Jesus. There was nothing of true, self sacrificing love in me. Even my narcissistic love ran dry rapidly upon demand of selfless giving.
But God's love is everlasting. It goes on forever. That's because He is love. Since He is eternal, love is eternal.
What is almost beyond my comprehension is that every single person that Jesus will say, "Depart from me" to is now and will always be loved by him. He gave everything for them. For God so loved the world..... John 3:16
This is the irony of our human existence. As much as God loves us He cannot change us until we respond in kind to His love.
This is true of us with our fellow humans as well. No matter how we love them we cannot make them change one bit. No matter how much they love us they cannot change us one bit. In fact as sad as it may be both God's love and our love given to a narcissistic person can actually let them grow deeper in their pride. And it is the same for us if we remain in our narcissism.
God is love and the one who does not love in response does not love or even know God. That is because He is love.
To truly know God is to truly know love. To be filled with God is to be filled with love.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit includes being filled to overflowing with love. That is why I believe what Keith Green said, "The primary evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is love for Jesus and others."
Keith had it right. The "gifts" of the Holy Spirit are amazing and extremely important for a believer. But without the love of God filling our hearts..... the Spirit of God Himself filling our hearts, the gifts are actually going to be destructive.
We must never rest on being loved by God. Hitler was loved by God. Charles Manson is loved by God. Karla Holmolka is loved by God. Being loved by God does not change people. Loving Him and those He loves in grateful response to His love does.
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
How wrong we see God when we understand Him as less than what He is:
1 John 4:7-9 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
The Bible says "God is love."
It does not say God has love.
It does not say God's character is to love.
It says "God is love."
He is the definition of love.
You see behind God there is nothing else. There is not a set of standards that God Himself is subject to. There is no ideal called love that we can compare God to. There is no higher authority than God. God is the standard by which everything else is considered.
God did not have to be love. He could have been hateful. Many think He is. He could have been selfish. He could have created the world for nothing more than His own pleasure.
When people say that there could be no God because of the existence of evil I have often wondered what my friend Harvey Katz once asked an atheist after he made such a statement. He said, "Who told you God had to be good?"
This is pivotal. God could still be God and be evil. The presence of evil does not demand that there is no God. It just gives the possibility that God may not be what we think is good.
I would suggest that believing in a God that hates is not inconceivable as many people believe in just such a God. And in fact God could have been hateful. And if He was so He would still be God.
How thankful I am that He is not hateful. He is love. He is the very essence of kindness, care, generosity and compassion.
The other wonderful message in today's meditation is that His love is everlasting.
It never ends.
I don't know about you but my love, as strong as it may be, runs out if tested to great limits. Were it not for God I would not even have real love.
I don't have such a great memory these days but I vividly remember what I was like before I knew Jesus. There was nothing of true, self sacrificing love in me. Even my narcissistic love ran dry rapidly upon demand of selfless giving.
But God's love is everlasting. It goes on forever. That's because He is love. Since He is eternal, love is eternal.
What is almost beyond my comprehension is that every single person that Jesus will say, "Depart from me" to is now and will always be loved by him. He gave everything for them. For God so loved the world..... John 3:16
This is the irony of our human existence. As much as God loves us He cannot change us until we respond in kind to His love.
This is true of us with our fellow humans as well. No matter how we love them we cannot make them change one bit. No matter how much they love us they cannot change us one bit. In fact as sad as it may be both God's love and our love given to a narcissistic person can actually let them grow deeper in their pride. And it is the same for us if we remain in our narcissism.
God is love and the one who does not love in response does not love or even know God. That is because He is love.
To truly know God is to truly know love. To be filled with God is to be filled with love.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit includes being filled to overflowing with love. That is why I believe what Keith Green said, "The primary evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is love for Jesus and others."
Keith had it right. The "gifts" of the Holy Spirit are amazing and extremely important for a believer. But without the love of God filling our hearts..... the Spirit of God Himself filling our hearts, the gifts are actually going to be destructive.
We must never rest on being loved by God. Hitler was loved by God. Charles Manson is loved by God. Karla Holmolka is loved by God. Being loved by God does not change people. Loving Him and those He loves in grateful response to His love does.
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Three Gifts of the Father
Malachi 4:5
"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. 6 "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse."
The last words of the Old Testament are concerning the relationship of Fathers with their Children
They describe the ministry of Elijah.
This gives us some idea of the importance of a father in a child's life. The ministry of the second most important messenger sent from God is described as turning hearts of father's to their children. And turning the hearts of their children to them
Without this mutual turning of hearts the earth is cursed.
THE GIFTS OF A FATHER
PROVISION
PROTECTION
PRESENCE
I believe one of the greatest assaults on the world in these last days has been to remove from fathers their role in the family.
The resulting curse is evident
Not only in families
But in the society at large the legacy of has been to remove fathers from being the primary provider - To remove fathers from being the protector of the family unit - To remove fathers from being in the home at all.
The key to being a provider, protector and loving presence in our wife and children's lives is found in our relationship with God our provider, protector and the one who is always with us.
Today, Father's Day, I was meditating on the aspect of my role of provider, protector and one who is with those I love in relationship to God's provision for me. What a wonderful blessing he has given us. We as fathers simply pass along what has already been given us. Those of us who have never really known what a real father looks like can find everything we need to be fathers by letting Him father us.
PROVISION
Proverbs 19:14
House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers,
I Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Luke 12:31 "But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
Luke 12:24 "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds! . . . .27 "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 28 "But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith! 29 "And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. 30 "For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. 31 "But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
PROTECTION
James 4:7 (KJS) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
PRESENCE
Hebrews 13:5
"I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,"
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Beauty for Ashes
Isaiah 61:1-7
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
2 To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them beauty for ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
4 Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
5 Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks,
And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.
6 But you will be called the priests of the LORD;
You will be spoken of as ministers of our God
You will eat the wealth of nations,
And in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shame you will have a double portion,
And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion
Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land,
Everlasting joy will be theirs.
This morning as I was spending time with my sweetheart she told me about how she had a family of finches in one of our birdhouses.
She gets so much joy from the birds we have on our property.
We have a bit of a wildlife refuge and a bit of the best earth gives.
Our home backs onto 1600 acres of farm property and she had me put many trees on the property. It is full of birds.
The appearance of this little finch family was especially precious as she has been going through a very hard time in her life in some of her other relationships.
As I was thinking about what she had told me I thought of the scripture that says He gives us "beauty for ashes."
How like God to do that! In the midst of terrible situations he makes sure the flowers still grow and the birds sing so that we can know that somewhere beyond our present situation there is hope for the future to be brighter than today.
Hope is the beauty He most often gives me for the ashes of my present life. Hope is beautiful. The little finches gobbling up the food their mom is bringing is the hope of the future for her and today for my beloved.
It reminded me of a story I once heard Corrie Ten Boom tell. She was visiting Oral Roberts University where I did my B.A. She was telling us about how she learned in the darkness of a life in a prison camp in Nazi ruled Germany that there was "No pit so deep that God was not deeper still."
She said the horror of the camp could not keep the beauty of God from coming forth. She related to us that his beauty in creation led her in one of the most horrible moments of her life. She said that she had to report to a prison administrator to go over her crimes and to be supervised.
The first day they reported they brought the prisoners into an open area where there were several huts that served as the offices of the administrators. On hut had a window box with flowers in it. She chose that administrator to report to. She said that she knew that in order for him to still plant and care for things of beauty that he had to have a part of his heart that had not been darkened by the horror that surrounded him.
She was right about him and he did help her while she was in that place. But the thing that I marveled at was how God's beauty invaded the darkness like a beacon of light to guide her to His protection. It still does the same today.
The beauty of the creation tells us of a greater beauty. It tells us of the one who its beauty comes from. The greatest beauty we can be given in the midst of these terrible ashes is God Himself. As we journey through death's valley He is with us. He is the true beauty of life.
Today my beloved tended the flowers in her garden and fed her birds. She knows the darkness is here. She feels the ashes of torched expectations. But she also knows that in the midst of the worst that life can give there is one who will always give Himself - the fountain of all beauty - for the ashes the world gives.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
2 To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them beauty for ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
4 Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
5 Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks,
And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.
6 But you will be called the priests of the LORD;
You will be spoken of as ministers of our God
You will eat the wealth of nations,
And in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shame you will have a double portion,
And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion
Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land,
Everlasting joy will be theirs.
This morning as I was spending time with my sweetheart she told me about how she had a family of finches in one of our birdhouses.
She gets so much joy from the birds we have on our property.
We have a bit of a wildlife refuge and a bit of the best earth gives.
Our home backs onto 1600 acres of farm property and she had me put many trees on the property. It is full of birds.
The appearance of this little finch family was especially precious as she has been going through a very hard time in her life in some of her other relationships.
As I was thinking about what she had told me I thought of the scripture that says He gives us "beauty for ashes."
How like God to do that! In the midst of terrible situations he makes sure the flowers still grow and the birds sing so that we can know that somewhere beyond our present situation there is hope for the future to be brighter than today.
Hope is the beauty He most often gives me for the ashes of my present life. Hope is beautiful. The little finches gobbling up the food their mom is bringing is the hope of the future for her and today for my beloved.
It reminded me of a story I once heard Corrie Ten Boom tell. She was visiting Oral Roberts University where I did my B.A. She was telling us about how she learned in the darkness of a life in a prison camp in Nazi ruled Germany that there was "No pit so deep that God was not deeper still."
She said the horror of the camp could not keep the beauty of God from coming forth. She related to us that his beauty in creation led her in one of the most horrible moments of her life. She said that she had to report to a prison administrator to go over her crimes and to be supervised.
The first day they reported they brought the prisoners into an open area where there were several huts that served as the offices of the administrators. On hut had a window box with flowers in it. She chose that administrator to report to. She said that she knew that in order for him to still plant and care for things of beauty that he had to have a part of his heart that had not been darkened by the horror that surrounded him.
She was right about him and he did help her while she was in that place. But the thing that I marveled at was how God's beauty invaded the darkness like a beacon of light to guide her to His protection. It still does the same today.
The beauty of the creation tells us of a greater beauty. It tells us of the one who its beauty comes from. The greatest beauty we can be given in the midst of these terrible ashes is God Himself. As we journey through death's valley He is with us. He is the true beauty of life.
Today my beloved tended the flowers in her garden and fed her birds. She knows the darkness is here. She feels the ashes of torched expectations. But she also knows that in the midst of the worst that life can give there is one who will always give Himself - the fountain of all beauty - for the ashes the world gives.
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