Category Archives: Bible

August 21 – Destroying The Temple

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2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chronicles 36

Solomon’s Temple is destroyed. The building burned, the pillars broken in pieces, all the gold and silver utensils stolen. That beautiful place where God had made His earthly home was nothing but ruin.

How could this happen? Was God powerless before King Nebuchadnessar?

Hardly!

The destruction of God’s dwelling place was actually a slow process. It started almost the minute Solomon had completed it. Over the years, sin had takin its toll on the temple and on God’s people. One king after another did “evil in the sight of the Lord.” The Jews began worshiping other gods. God’s own people were the ones responsible for what happened to the Temple more than the Babylonian king.

I am reminded, as a heart where God dwells on this earth, to protect this temple, to obey God, to worship Him only, serve Him gladly. God’s will is that this temple stand until He calls me home.

May He find me faithful, my heart a place that welcomes Him in, a life that radiates His Presence. I don’t want to neglect the temple that is my heart, or give Satan a foothold. I want to choose every day to be a temple as beautiful as Solomon’s, and occupied by my Lord and Savior.

 

August 20 – Rags And Armpits

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Jeremiah 38-40; Psalms 74, 79

I like Ebed-melech, and I bet you don’t even know who he is. (I didn’t either until I read Jeremiah 38 this morning). But I think he is one of my new favorite Old Testament personalities.

Ebed-melech was an Ethiopian eunuch who worked for King Zedekiah. When he heard Jeremiah the prophet had been thrown into a cistern and left to die, Ebed-melech went to the king and asked permission to bring Jeremiah up out of the muddy pit. The king not only gave that permission, he told his servant to hurry before Jeremiah died there.

Now this is what made me want to hang out with Ebed-melech: He ran and gathered old clothes and rags, and threw them into the cistern. He told Jeremiah to put them under his armpits under the ropes. Ebed-melech was going to pull Jeremiah up, but Jeremiah had been sinking in mud for who knows how long. It wasn’t going to be easy to pull him out of that. And Ebed-melech figured that those ropes would tear into Jeremiah’s skin if left unprotected.

Ebed-melech considered the prophet’s well-being, he recognized a need and met that need even before Jeremiah knew he had the need!

Our pastors are our modern-day prophets, those who proclaim the Word of God. Oh, I pray for my pastors. I lift them up, so to speak. But Ebed-melech has me asking if I really take care of them.

Do I consider their well-being? Do I anticipate a need they might have, and meet that need even before they realize it? I am blessed to sit under the teaching of two godly, hard-working men. And I want to be their Ebed-melech. I’ll continue to lift them up before the Lord, and ask for their protection, and blessings on their ministries. But I also want to be sensitive to any need they might have that I can meet. They are pulled in so many directions. I’d like to be the rags under their armpits.

 

August 19 – So Who Do You Obey?

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Jeremiah 35-37

I am a law abiding citizen. I set my cruise control when I travel so I don’t speed. I pay my taxes. I don’t steal from or cheat people.

I learned obedience from my father who, we’d often say, had the fastest belt in the west. Consequences for disobedience were swift and painful. I learned that obeying the rules was better for all of us. Especially for the seat of my pants.

The Rechabites were obedient children, too. Their dad had given them a standard, and not even the prophet Jeremiah could get them to disobey. So I’m reading this today and had a Gibb’s slap on the back of my head moment when I read 35:14-17. God said:

The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons not to drink wine are observed. So they do not drink wine to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not listened to Me… you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me… but this people has not listened to Me… and I have called them but they did not answer.

I have to ask myself why it is I follow the laws of this land, yet find it so easy to disobey the God of the Universe.

There’s something wrong with that picture.

 

August 18 – Participation Trophies

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Jeremiah 32-34

When I was first given the responsibility of assigning the Presidential Academic Fitness Award at the school where I was the Guidance Counselor, the qualifications were rigorous. Students needed to keep a high GPA through Middle School as well as score consistently high on standardized tests. There were no subjective qualifiers. And, as hard as it sometimes was, a 3.2 GPA didn’t qualify if 3.3 was the standard.

But receiving that award was a great accomplishment for those who earned it. Soon, someone decided that the feelings of kids who didn’t meet the mark outweighed the feeling of pride and success of those who did. More subjective benchmarks were included. It changed the whole picture of what that award had been.

Many schools have eliminated Valedictorian and Salutatorian honors for the same reason. And how many of you have “participation” trophies sitting on your shelves? We’ve taken away competition at the same time we are trying to compete with other countries around the world. That’s a soap box I could stand on. But God wasn’t really speaking to me about competition this morning. He was, however, speaking to me about participation.

God told the Jews to free their Hebrew slaves. “And all the officials and all the people obeyed…” (34:10) They all participated.

But then they enslaved their brothers once again. Did they obey or disobey? Shouldn’t they get credit for participating? Here’s what God says about that:

Therefore thus says the Lord, You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming release each man to his brother and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I am proclaiming a release to you, declares the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine; and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. (34:17)

God goes on to say they will be given into the hand of their enemies. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds and the beasts.

Friends, there are no Participation Trophy Rooms in heaven. There is no less heat in hell for those who kind of obey. God has set the standard, He’s spelled out His demands. He’s set the bar pretty high – ALL!

It’s not good enough to go to church and read your Bible occasionally. It’s not enough to refrain from alcohol or to be faithful to your wife. It’s not enough to be a good neighbor, an honest person, thoughtful and kind.

God’s standards are these: Give Him 100%. Confess your sins AND repent. Accept Jesus as your Savior. Lay at His feet your life, your dreams, your health, your family. Trust Him. Seek Him with all your heart. Love Him above all. Obey Him.

No one said it’s easy. Nothing worth having is. But understand this: God is not going to change His standards for fear you’ll get your feelings hurt. If you’re hoping for a participation trophy, look at the cross. Does anything you’ve done compare to what Jesus did for you?

August 17 – Don’t “Should”

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Jeremiah 30-31

There is a former student of mine, the mother of four, a young woman who loves her husband and who is loved by him, yet who battles depression and the all-too-often desire to stop living. She’s not a Christian. She reads self-help books, listens to Oprah, and tries to follow the advice of friends who tell her she shouldn’t feel that way, that she should be thankful, that she should tap into her own strength and pull herself up.

But I think all those “should’s” just make it worse.

I thought about her today as I read these chapters. God is telling the Jews that they have a serious injury, an incurable wound.

There is no one to plead your cause; no healing for your sore, no recovery for you. (30:13)

God even goes a step further and tells them to  quit crying about it. Felling sorry for yourself doesn’t change a thing.

Wow, God. Thanks for the encouragement. I feel so much better now.

Read on. God gives more than just a sympathetic pat on the back.

For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds, declares the Lord. (vs 17)

The truth is we all have reason to loathe ourselves. We’ve all done things to be ashamed of, to be sorry for. But trying to fix things by our own efforts is a bit like putting a bandaid on that incurable wound. We may feel better for a time. But when we fall (and we always fall) that wound bleeds a bit more. We feel worse than before, more useless, more of a failure than before.

God wants us to know that we don’t have to manufacture a feeling of healing. HE IS THE HEALER. We don’t have to pull ourselves out of the pit. He died, went into that pit Himself, so we wouldn’t have to live there. He rose again so that we could be born again ourselves, be free from the power of sin, and know the joy that comes from having our sins forgiven.

I think the only “should” we should listen to is the one that tells us we should go to the Father, repent of our sins, and let Him heal us. There is a sense of relief in that “should.”

August 16 – At Any Cost

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Jeremiah 26-29

If you are reading this blog you are probably sitting in air-conditioning, or looking at your cell phone with a cup of coffee in your hand. I know that is an exaggeration, but most of us have to admit we’re pretty comfortable.

Most of us go about our day without too much difficulty, and I would imagine none of us fear we’re gong to be killed today just because we love Jesus. Not so in some parts of our world. The reality is, some people WILL die today because they are Christians.

Jeremiah was facing death because he was a true prophet of God. He told it like God told him to tell it, and refused to tickle the ears of the people, or to be politically correct. Listen to what he said to those who had given him a death sentence:

… The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard. Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will change his mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you. But as for me, behold, I am in your hands; do with me as is good and right in your sight. Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city and on its inhabitants; for truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing. (26:12b-15) (emphasis mine)

In the face of death, he didn’t back down. Jeremiah was willing to die. But he was determined to live for God at any cost.

Does that describe me? Am I determined to follow Christ even if it costs me friendships, a career, a dream, my health, my life? I pray that I will live every day unashamed of the Gospel, that I will not compromise the Truth “for truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing.”

At any cost.

August 15 – The Oracle From God

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Jeremiah 23-25

The Bible talks a lot about false prophets. They are out there! They’ve always been out there. They claim to have a message from God – but it’s not true. They write books and blogs, go on talk shows, and stand before some congregations every Sunday. They label themselves Christian, and even can quote Scripture. But they are polluted and wicked, (23:11) and “intend to make (God’s) people forget (His) name…” (vs 27).

Jeremiah says the more they proclaim this “oracle” from God the harder it will be to recognize the Truth.

For you will no longer remember the oracle of the Lord because every man’s own words will become the oracle, and you have perverted the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God. (vs 36)

Do you know the Truth when you hear it? Do you recognize a distortion of that Truth? You’ve got to read and re-read God’s Word for yourself. In these pages is the only Truth. And it doesn’t come by one or two verses taken out of context.

Read the whole Bible. Memorize passages that God lays on your heart. Ask Him to help you recognize the lies.

And He will.

August 14 – Kill The Messenger

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Jeremiah 18-22

Being a prophet of God in Jeremiah’s day must have been a hard, often thankless job. People only wanted to hear good news. And, let’s face it, those prophets didn’t often come bearing good news.

When hearing that God was about to discipline His disobedient children, or worse, destroy them, their reaction was no different than ours today. They got mad at the prophet. Kill the messenger! Jeremiah was beaten and put in stocks for telling the truth.

No one likes to hear they are wrong, that they deserve punishment, that they are sinners in need of a Savior. I get that. Sometimes we who proclaim the Gospel are hated.

What is our reaction to their response? Do we water down the Truth so it goes down a bit easier? Do we edit the Gospel so as not to offend? Do we just quit sharing the Gospel because we fear rejection? Do we convince ourselves that if God wants that person saved, he’ll be saved with or without me, so it might as well be without me?

Satan must love it when we wimp out.

Folks, people aren’t going to always pat you on the back when you talk about sin.

Talk about it anyway.

They aren’t always going to thank you for sharing the Gospel.

Share it anyway.

You might be rejected, even hated, for your faithfulness.

Be faithful anyway.

Because God promises to be faithful to you, even if they want to kill the messenger.

August 13 – Roots

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Jeremiah 14-17

It’s been a hot and dry summer here in Ohio. The grass is brown, the flowers have wilted, leaves on trees droop. The last few days there has been an occasional shower and even a few heavy rains, but so far it doesn’t seem to have had much effect on the landscape.

In fact, I went out in bare feet yesterday to get the mail, and the grass was still dry and brittle. It’s been that parched here. Even a bit of rain isn’t enough to quench the ground.

Jeremiah says people who put their trust in mankind, or even in themselves, are like that. (17:5-6) Like tumbleweeds in a desert, like a desolate land of salt, they are cursed with a thirst that cannot be satisfied. Oh, many will say that’s not true, that they are just fine without God. Jeremiah says they’re so used to living in the wilderness they won’t even see when prosperity comes.

Then the prophet goes on. People who put their trust in the Lord are blessed!

For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. (17:7-8)

We who plant ourselves close to the Living Water will have deep roots, we won’t fear the heat of battle or hardship, and our faith will stand firm even when things around us dry up. Then, because of our witness, people will want what we have. We’ll bear fruit!

Where are your roots planted?

 

 

August 12 – My Prayer For Luke

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Jeremiah 10-13

We welcomed the newest member of our family, Luke Mitchell, into the world yesterday. 8lbs 15oz, with a head full of thick, blonde hair. He gave his mommy a very hard time. But she and her precious son are doing fine.

Sometimes when I read God’s Word and hear Him express anger toward disobedience, and see how He disciplines His children, like here in Jeremiah, I can get fearful for the future of the little ones in my life. I recognize the blatant disregard for God in the Old Testament children of Israel as the same as the disregard for God in some aspects of the 2016 Church.

I hear God say, “I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My inheritance; therefore I have come to hate her.” (12:8) Pretty strong words. We don’t like to think about God hating His own people.

Here’s my prayer for Luke (and the other amazing little people filling our quiver).

May he be raised in the nurture and admonition of God. May he come to know Jesus as his Savior as soon as he understands what sin is and what Jesus did for him on the cross. May he grow up to be a man who knows the Truth of Scripture, who applies it to his life, and who’s stands for that Truth without compromise. May he never give God reason to hate him. And may his life be a testimony that draws others to the wonderful grace of Jesus.

And may God speak to the hearts of all His people today. May He find us obedient, standing in His strength, empowered by His Presence, and not ashamed to make it known. May none of us give Him reason to hate us.