I am still learning a few things with this laminate flooring.  Among them, I found out that you really cannot put off dusting under the beds.  I must admit, it doesn’t get done every week.  I usually do it a couple times a month, but a few weeks ago I found out that you simply cannot wait any longer if you want to save your reputation as a housekeeper.  Keith was getting warm as he dressed for church that Sunday morning, so he switched on the fan.  Suddenly, from under the bed, a veritable stampede of dust bunnies came rolling out, some as big as my fist.  At least there were no visitors in the bedroom with us.

            I thought of that little episode when I found the following verse:  Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below, Job 40:12,13.  I think Job means that God has no regard for the arrogant, that death will be their ultimate end, a place in the dust from whence they came. 

            God has special anger for those who do not rely on him.  He reminded the Israelites that everything they had came from him, not from their own hard work or from their own merit. 

            "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deut 28:7-14.  I know that was lengthy, but do you get the point?  Everything the Israelites had came from God.  It was when they forgot this, when they turned to those other gods, that they had their biggest failure.  We, the Israel of God today (Gal 6:16), need to beware lest God hide us in the dust just like he did those people.

            I know we have trouble relying on God when we act like a financial setback is the end of the world, when we fail to pray because the doctor says there is no hope, even when we fail to pray for rain because the forecast is dry.  Just like Israel, we have taken on new gods—modern medicine, financial prognosticators, retirement plans, armies, and weapons.  God can change anything in the blink of an eye.  Do we believe it, or has our religion become a bit too reasonable and logical? 

            I wonder what Gideon would have thought of us, a man who beat an army “without number” with 300 weaponless men.  I wonder what the apostles would say to us, 12 relatively young, poor men who spread the gospel to an entire world.  Do we share the same God they do, or do we rely upon another, weaker god, maybe even ourselves?

            When Ezra returned to Jerusalem with his little band, he refused the king’s offer of an armed guard.  Why?  For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, "The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him." So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty, Ezra 8:22,23.  Ezra understood that relying on something besides God put the lie to his faith, not only to God, but in the eyes of the world as well. 

            What are you relying on this morning?  Would your neighbors know that you depend upon God for everything, or would God turn on the fan, burying you in the ensuing dust cloud with the rest of the idolaters in the world?
 
Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jer 17:5-8
 
Dene Ward

My sister and I stood near the end of the long pier that jutted into the Gulf, a steady breeze blowing our hair across our faces, the hot sun pounding our shoulders as only a Florida sun can.  The planks beneath our sandaled feet were thick and gray, old enough to have splintered on the surface here and there but still solid, only a faint vibration when anyone walked past us.  The waves rolled in, small and steady, splashing the pilings beneath us and sprinkling us with salt spray.
            We had cane poles that day, no fancy rods and reels—just throw it in the water and pull it up when the fish bites.  And all of a sudden one did.  At 11 and with very little experience in the sport, it felt like a monster and I am sure I must have squealed.  Suddenly I was surrounded and a hand helped me pull the thing up.
            “What is that!?” I asked no one in particular.  It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, about 5 pounds worth of ugly.
            A man I didn’t know laughed.  “It’s a cowfish,” he said, but actually the profile looked more like a pig’s than a cow’s to me.  He advised me to throw it back and I did—the only fish I ever caught.
            Fishing is a common theme in the Bible—and I bet you’re thinking of the gospels.  But Amos, Jeremiah, Habakkuk all used that metaphor too.
            ​The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. Amos 4:2
            “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. Jer 16:16
            You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. ​He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. ​Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? Hab 1:14-17
            The prophets use the metaphor of God’s people being caught by a net or hook and carried into exile.  It was a fearsome image, one far removed from the picture we might have of a quiet man meditatively casting his line into a babbling brook. It takes Jesus to turn that scary prophetic metaphor on its ear.  Yes, we are “fishers of men,” but whereas the Assyrians and Babylonians made captives of those they caught, Jesus sets us free.
            For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Rom 8:2.  Free from the law, free from sin, free from the lusts of the flesh, free from death.  How could we be any freer?
            And it doesn’t really matter to him how ugly a fish we are.  Unless we struggle in his hands, he won’t throw us back. 
 
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
 
Dene Ward

I was the typical first timer, scared to death that I would not know what labor was when it actually hit me.  All I had ever seen were television and movie versions of labor where the woman grabs her rounded abdomen and gasps, so that is what I expected.  Turns out I was right to worry.

            About twelve days before my due date I suddenly began having contractions.  This was surely it, I thought.  I told Keith and we waited it out for a couple of hours as they gradually faded, never having hurt at all.  Yes, they were the old Braxton Hicks contractions, so named for the English doctor John Braxton Hicks, who finally figured them out.  Some people call them “practice labor,” but that practice did not help me a bit.

            Four nights later I sat at the table trying to finish up a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  We lived in Illinois and I had been stuck inside most of the winter because I did not have a coat that would fit around me, so I wiled away some of the long hours with puzzles. 

            I had come close to finishing that night, when about 10 pm I noticed a little twinge in my back.  Pregnant women have backaches all the time so I thought nothing of it.  But about 2:00, when I had still not been able to get to sleep, that twinge suddenly became stronger.  “But this can’t be labor,” I thought.  “It’s just a bad backache.” Then my water broke.  Good thing because that was my only clue that it was indeed labor, a labor that, counting the time from 10:00, only lasted six and a half hours, and never found its way around front.  I might not have made it to the hospital on time if I had not suddenly found myself awash with the evidence.  At 4:45, I had a posterior birth, sunny-side-up the nurses call it, a nine plus pounder, twenty two inches long who, because of my anatomy and his size, could not make the final turn.  When that happens you get “back labor,” which is why I did not recognize it. 

            Two years and one week later, a day before my due date, I was in the front yard weeding my flowers.  We were in South Carolina this time so that early in May my plants were already blooming.  Suddenly I felt a little twinge in my back.  This time, because of my previous experience, I paid attention.  A half hour later I felt another.  Five hours later another sunny-side-up nine plus pounder entered the world.  This time I was ready for it because I could now tell the difference between false labor, a pregnant backache, and back labor.

            The Hebrew writer tells us, But solid food is for fullgrown men, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, 5:14.  That tells me that sometimes deciding what I need to do in a given situation is not always a simple matter.  Just like I had to learn from experience what was and wasn’t labor, sometimes I need to “discern” the Word to decide between good and evil, or maybe between good and better.  In fact, “discern” is translated “decide” in 1 Cor 6:5 ASV, “weigh what is said” in 1 Cor 14:29 ESV, and determining what makes things “differ” in 1 Cor 4:7 ASV.  God gives us guidelines and we must determine the best course of action, always following those guidelines. 

             The Pharisees had a difficult time with this.  They took the easy way out and simply followed a set of rules without weighing the circumstances, and where there were no rules, they made some up.  Their guideline was often their own best interests.  “Instead of taking care of your aging parents, you must give to the Temple treasury,” they preached, Mark 7:11.  In other words, God always trumps people.  And even if that money never was given, as long as it was declared “dedicated to God” (Corban) they could keep it for their own use and not be counted guilty for not honoring their parents.

            Though it was told as a story, one can easily imagine the priest and the Levite saying, “Going to the temple services is more important than stopping to help this poor man because God must always come first,” in Jesus’ narrative of the Good Samaritan.  It perfectly fit their little formula for how to determine the “right” course of action.  What they forgot was that serving his children is one way we serve God—“inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me.”  They would pull their oxen out of the ditch, but castigate our Lord for healing on the Sabbath.  Their pious formula, “God trumps people” was an out that served only to make him angry, Mark 3:5.

            Jesus said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone, Matt 23:23.  They had forgotten the obligation to “discern,” to “weigh things out,” and make a decision based on years of experience with God.  And maybe that is our problem, too—we don’t have enough experience with God in his word.

            Over and over Jesus reminded those people that it was not simply a matter of a rote following of the Law. Sometimes you have to think, “What is the greater good here?”  That “good” must always be lawful, which should go without saying or it would not be “good,” but when our decisions always ignore grace and mercy, we are forgetting the very thing that caused our Savior to die for us.  How can we possibly think we will receive those things from him?
 
And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless, Matt 12:7.
 
Dene Ward

Part 4 in a continuing Monday morning series.  Read this one carefully, and do NOT skip the scriptures!
           
Last time we talked about God’s immanence, his desire to connect with us and have a relationship with us.  God wants “to dwell in our midst.”  But what makes that even more amazing is God’s transcendence, His “Otherness.”  God is so far beyond our understanding that we cannot even comprehend the difference between Him and us.  But the ones who truly realize this show it in fear.  Please note:  “fear” is not a naughty word in the Bible.  It is an entirely appropriate emotion in the right place.

            For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. Isa 8:11-13.  Whom you fear shows your faithfulness to God.

            There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. Isa 11:1-2  Even the Messiah would “fear the Lord.”

            That fear did not stop in the first century, under the New Covenant.  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Acts 9:31

            That word, while it can be translated reverence, also means dread and terror.  Do not minimize it or weaken it because then you will miss the point of God’s transcendence.  In Ex 33 18-23, Moses asks to see God.  God tells him that He will allow Moses to see His goodness, but “you cannot see my face for man cannot see my face and live” (Ex 18:20.  It isn’t that God will kill someone who sees Him; it’s that we mere humans cannot stand to see such a glorious Being—we would die from it; our physical bodies cannot take it!

            Think for a minute about the call of Isaiah.  Chapter 6 begins with the statement that he saw God on his throne, but what did he really look at?  The throne, the train of his robe, the seraphim above the throne, and the smoke filling the room.  Nothing at all is said about how God Himself looks, but even those surrounding things send Isaiah into a panic, sure he will now die because he, a man, has been in the presence of such holiness.

            Look at Ezekiel’s experience in 1:26-28.  He uses the words “like,” “likeness,” “appearance,” and “as it were” again and again.  Is he really seeing God or something that looks like it might be God?  And even that causes him “to fall on his face.”

            When we weaken the concept of fearing God, we lose even the minute understanding we can have of God’s greatness, His glory, His holiness, and His might.  Even the term we often sing about—awe—has become a word denoting the trivial.  “That’s awesome,” we say of everything from basketball shots to a free ice cream cone on your birthday.  We’ve turned God into a big Granddaddy whose lap we can jump into and say, “Hi Pops!”

            When we lessen the fear, we lose the thing it was designed to create as well.  that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, …by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Deut 6:2, and in Ex 20:20, that the fear of Him may be before you that you may not sin.  The fear keeps us from sinning.

            And do not for a minute think that fear lessens love.  For one thing, recognizing the awesomeness, in its true meaning, of God, and knowing that still He wants to have a relationship with us in spite of the great divide in our beings, should inspire love.  God expects this love to be a natural reaction from us.  “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, Deut 10:12.

            A proper recognition of God’s transcendence, a being so far above us that He should not even care about us, yet He does, is essential to serving God properly. 
 
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. Ps 130:3-4
 
Dene Ward

And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: ​There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” --- And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”  (Mark 7:14-19)

            You would think that a generation that is so big on “the heart” and emotions and how worship “makes me feel” would have little trouble understanding that true beauty and goodness have absolutely nothing to do with what you eat.  But more and more I see young Christian women obsessed by their diets and exercise programs.  Understand, I have nothing against diets and exercise.  When the time comes to lose a few pounds I will willingly push away the food as easily as the most conscientious dieter out there.  I used to jog 5 miles 6 days a week—until my feet gave out on me, and now my eyes.  So I hop on the elliptical machine 4 or 5 times a week for 45 minutes at a whack.

            But I will never stand in front of a mirror and tell myself that I am not beautiful today because I ate a doughnut for breakfast, particularly if it’s the first one in 6 weeks.  Jesus very plainly tells us in the above passage that we are defiled by sin, not by what we eat. 

            In fact, when my diet and exercise regimen keep me from practicing hospitality or fellowshipping with my brethren at a potluck, maybe my diet and exercise program have defiled my heart instead, making me ugly before God.  I hope that everyone has the sense to know that I am not talking about celiac disease or IBS or deadly peanut allergies.  I am talking about fads that mean far more to us than our discipleship seems to, taking up more time researching them than studying the Word, obsessions that make us anxious about the wrong things and keep us from practicing the right ones.

            And this is not meant to give you license to become a glutton.  It does however give you Biblical authority to graciously receive a meal offered you by another brother and sister who have worked all day to prepare for you the best they have.  It allows you to accept gratefully that piece of warm banana bread from the elderly widow you stopped by to see, who went to that trouble because she so seldom has visitors any longer and who will be hurt if you refuse.  It permits you to go to lunch with that group of sisters after an hour or two of intense Bible study, to cement your relationships with one another around a shared table.  If your regimen does not allow for these things, you need to consider again what Jesus said as well as the many scriptures commanding us to offer hospitality to one another, and the examples of Christians meeting house to house to “break bread” together on an almost daily basis.

            Doing these things makes us beautiful in the eyes of God.  It has nothing to do with a svelte, sexy figure and everything to do with service, gratitude, and graciousness.  Don’t judge yourself ugly because you ate a doughnut today.  We are made in the image of God, and when you have your priorities straight, those who are His children will not see you as anything but beautiful.
 
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. 1Pet 3:3-4
 
Dene Ward

The story of Jehu has always left me a little perplexed.  God sent a prophet to anoint him king over Israel and to give him this mission:  You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, 2 Kgs 9:7.

            Jehu accomplished the mission God gave him, throwing King Joram’s body into Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, and becoming king in his place.  He went on to kill Jezebel and completely wipe out both Ahab’s descendants and the prophets and priests of Baal as well. 

            Yet, in the first chapter of Hosea you read this:  And the LORD said to him, "Call his name [Hosea’s son] Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, v 4.  Now is that fair?  God gave the man a mission and he fulfilled it, and now his descendants will be punished for the very thing God told him to do?

            No, God did not punish Jehu for his obedience.  In fact, he rewarded him.  And the LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel," 2 Kgs 10:30.  The problem was the reason he obeyed.  Later on, when far more needed doing to restore Israel to God, he failed.  But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, v 31.  When you pick and choose the commands you will obey, you are making it obvious that you are only doing what you want to do, not what God wants you to do.  What should have been the hallmark of his obedience became the thing that made his rebellion obvious—he hadn’t really obeyed then either.

            Obedience doesn’t count when it’s what you want to do anyway.  The true test of obedience comes when you don’t want to do it, when it costs you something, when it makes trouble in your life. 

            When you say, “It’s just this time, God won’t care because I have done everything else right,” you are condemning yourself just like Jehu did.  Killing the house of Ahab made him king; of course he wanted to do it.  But getting rid of the golden calves?  Now that might have angered his new followers.  Don’t want to rock the boat, do we?  After all, God, I can accomplish more if I stay in power longer, right?  I can just imagine such rationalizations springing to Jehu’s mind, the same sort of rationalizations we use when we want to get out of a difficult moment our faith has put us in.

            Examine your faith this morning.  Why are you faithful?  Have you ever fudged a little?  Was it because of your own likes and dislikes, or maybe your fear of the consequences?  Did you fail to obey because in that one instance you simply didn’t want to?  If so, then the fact that you have ever obeyed only means that in those cases you didn’t mind doing so, and that means you were only serving yourself and not God. 
 
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. Josh 22:5;  James 2:10.                                                   

Dene Ward      

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

In our Matthew class, I noted that chapter 19 is all about the cost of discipleship.  Jesus does teach about Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage, but his main purpose in that section is that some may have to give up their sexuality for the kingdom's sake (vss 1-12).  Go read it and tell me what else, “become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake” might mean.  

His next point is that we must become little children (vss13-15).  So, Jesus challenges us to give up all that makes a man a man. In the kingdom, a man is not “just a man” bound by his nature, he makes choices for God.  

Finally, he talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter (vss 16-30). Will you do what the rich young ruler would not and give up your success, your money, your status, your sense of fulfillment?  

This changes a lot of perspectives in the Marriage Divorce Remarriage section--It IS hard.  No compromise at all.  Do you want Jesus badly enough to give it up?  He will not do what many denominations have done and accept the alternate or sinful lifestyles because that is “just how they are” or "God wants me to be happy."

It may come as a shock, but God does not care whether you are happy. He wants you to be saved and that process may make one unhappy!  One may be full of joy in his relationship with Jesus and in the life of triumph and the hope of eternal life while realizing that temporal happiness will never come.  Did not Paul feel this way?
 
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Phil 4:11-13

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort .2Cor 1:7-9
 
Keith Ward

I tried to call Keith from the doctor’s office the other day.  I had just stepped out of the elevator and was standing in an enclosed “breezeway” between the bank of elevators and the eye clinic, lined with windows and a view of the city from four floors up.  The little screen on the phone showed “Calling work,” then suddenly switched back to the home screen.  I never did hear it ring on the other end.  I tried twice more but both times the phone stayed silent. 

            I knew I had called from that site before, so I stepped a few paces to the left and tried again.  This time I got a rough ring on the other end and Keith picked up.   We still had a difficult conversation between the phone connection losing every other word of his and him being so deaf that even an amplifier is not an instant cure, but at least we communicated the necessities—I had managed to make another trip into town without running over anyone or anyone running into me.

            Sometimes we have difficulty making connections with God, and usually that is our fault—we are standing in the wrong place. 
 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isa 59:2
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear, Psa 66:18.
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness, Deut 32:20.
 
            We overstate the matter, and miss the point entirely, when we say God only hears Christians.  He heard Cornelius’s prayer before he was converted, Acts 10:4.  God answered that “prayer of a sinner,” not with the instant forgiveness promised by televangelists today, but by sending Peter to preach the gospel, Acts 11:14, “words whereby you shall be saved.”

            The passages listed above were all said of people who claimed to be children of God, “children in whom there is no faithfulness,” yet people we would have called “believers” today.  Faithfulness involves dependent trust.  When God’s people in the Old Testament began relying on the gods of their pagan neighbors, participating in their worship, while at the same time claiming to worship him, he had them carried into captivity as a punishment.

            What are you relying on besides God?  Whatever it is, it stands between you and the connection you so badly need to help you handle life’s difficulties.  If you pray and pray and pray, yet still feel deserted by God, look around.  Are you standing behind a pillar of self-reliance?  Do you count your financial preparations as the ultimate security?  Do you look at the life you have led thus far and find yourself so completely satisfied with your efforts that you think you have salvation “in the bag?”  Security in the promises of God is one thing—arrogance and self-righteousness is quite another.  When we trust in anything besides God, we have become the same faithless children as those ancient Jews.

            God never tells us that life will be easy.  He never says that nothing bad will happen to us as long as we are faithful.  What he does tell us, is that as long as we rely on him alone, he will not forsake us.  He will give us the help we need to get through the tough times, and ultimately to the eternal salvation that will make this life look like a mere blink of the eye.

            Are you having a difficult time making a connection with God these days?  Take a step or two in the right direction, and suddenly the signal will become loud and clear.
 
And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on you…Oh Jehovah you are our God, 2 Chron 14:11.
 
Dene Ward

Last time we talked about knowing who and what God is, and the way He interacts with people.  Let’s look a little further at the reason and the method He chooses to interact with us.

            You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:43-45.

            And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God. Lev 19:1-4.

            Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Lev 20:7

            You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Lev 20:26

            After reading those verses back to back, one cannot help but be impressed with the holiness of God, that this is the “why” of every command God gives.  After this beginning, whenever He gives a command, God merely says, “I am Jehovah,” and expects them to remember that His essence demands their holiness if they are to relate to Him at all.  Check out Leviticus chapters 18 and 19 to see for yourself.

            From the beginning, God wanted a relationship with his creation.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day... Gen 3:8.  It seems He had a regular date with Adam and Eve to get together and talk, an appointment that was lost in their sin and that He took great pains to regain.

            When He brought His people out of Egypt, He tried to set up the same sort of relationship. 

            And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exod 25:8

            There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. Exod 29:43-46

            I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. Lev 26:11-12

            Once again His people rejected that relationship, but do not relegate that concept to the Old Covenant.  God is still trying to reach us in this intimate way.

            What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2Cor 6:16

            in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Eph 2:21-22

            The first of those two passages applies to individuals and the second to the church, his spiritual Temple.  God wants to be among us.  In fact, God wants what He had in the beginning, a relationship that, this time, will continue for Eternity.

            Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband….through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God, Rev 21:1-2; 22:2; 21:3.
 
Dene Ward

I am a crossword puzzle enthusiast—a cruciverbalist, but that is not the extent of the word games I enjoy.  One of my favorites involves making as many words as possible out of one larger word—not anagrams exactly, which use every letter of the word and are small in number, but using the letters of the word only as many times as the original word uses them and making as many other words as possible, three letters or larger, not counting plurals, past tense, or other obvious derivatives. 

            For example, how many other words can you make out of the word “jealousy?”  Sea, use, you, soul, say, aloes, lose, louse, yea, seal, joules, lea, sole, jay, lay, say, soy—and that’s just off the top of my head typing as fast as I can.  But how about this one—joy?  Seems a little ironic, doesn’t it, that you can make joy out of jealousy?

            A lot of people get those two mixed up.  In times where we should be “rejoicing with those who rejoice,” we find ourselves feeling just a tinge of jealousy.  Why did he get that promotion and not me?  Why is she being lauded from the pulpit and not me?  Why do people run to them for advice when I am just as smart/experienced/knowledgeable/ wise, etc.?  And that green-eyed monster gradually takes over, turning us into its willing minion.  We can easily think of reasons that other person does not deserve this and spread it to whomever will listen, causing us to ignore our own blessings, steeping ourselves in ingratitude that gradually becomes bitterness, not just against the other person, but at life in general. 

            Elizabeth is the best example I know of someone who got it right.  She took what could have been a cause for jealousy and changed it into a cause for joy.

            Zacharias and Elizabeth had made it to old age without having children.  According to Lenski, Elizabeth was probably looked down on as someone who had somehow displeased God—that was the general attitude toward barren women.  Finally, after years of waiting, probably with a multitude of prayers, Zacharias came home with the good news—albeit written down, since he could no longer speak:  “We are going to be parents!”  And not only that, but this child will be special—he will be the promised Elijah spoken of in Malachi.

            Then lo and behold, six months later, along comes her teenage cousin with even better news.  She too, is pregnant, and is blessed to bear the Messiah.  What?!  Elizabeth has been waiting for decades.  She is older and wiser.  She has been the faithful wife of a priest, and borne the ridicule of an ignorant culture, blaming her for her own misfortune.  And she gets the Forerunner while this child who has scarcely lived long enough to even be considered faithful, who is fertile (in this culture the family would know her menstrual history) and will probably (and ultimately did) bare more than half a dozen children, this girl gets the Messiah?  How fair is that?

            But Elizabeth had the grateful attitude and the abiding Messianic hope of a faithful child of God.  In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Luke 1:39-43.

            Not only is she excited for Mary, she humbles herself before a younger woman, one with far less experience and far less service on her record—she simply hadn’t lived long enough to do much yet.  And her joy?  It was not a feigned, polite joy, but a joy so overwhelming that “the babe leaped in her womb for joy” v 44.  I am told that “leap for joy” is one Greek word, the same one used in verse 40, quoted earlier.  It is a sympathetic joy.  In other words, Elizabeth was so moved with joy that it caused her unborn child to move within her.  Every mother understands how her own emotions can affect her unborn baby, in the last trimester especially.  Elizabeth’s joy for her young cousin was that deep and moving.  Jealousy never entered her heart for a second.

            How does that match with statements like, “He gets to lead singing more than my husband;” “My husband hasn’t been asked to teach in a long time;” “How can he be an elder when my husband is just as good as he is and no one has asked him.” 

            Oh yes, it happens.  And it should not.  If we are all members of the same body, then if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1Cor 12:26. 

            Love “envies not” 1 Cor 13:4.  When you do envy, you do not love as you are commanded to.  Jealousy and envy are works of the flesh (Gal 5:20,21).  Those who practice them “will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  Check yourself on this.  Has your speech given you away?
T
            oo many of us get this backwards.  We rejoice when bad things happen to others and weep when good things happen to them.  What about you?
 
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Gal 5:25-26
 
Dene Ward