Drawing closer to the Lord

Isn’t it amazing how much we read in a month? Years ago, I had made a commitment to the Lord to read my Bible at least as much as I read other materials (books, magazines and now I need to add time spent on the Internet). Yes, we need to spend more time with the Lord as we see our world falling apart, may we run and embrace Christ who gives us our strength and our hope and our peace of mind.

We start with looking at 2 Samuel 11:1-5 “It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.”

This decision to stay behind rather than going to war like David had done in the past, ended up bringing David to his knees. But before that happened, his sin was such that many would say that he had lost favor with the Lord. Certainly, after committing adultery and then killing the husband of the woman he impregnated should have humbled him but it seems it wasn’t until Nathan came to him with a parable that David cried out, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Sam 12:13)

And with that confession the Lord forgave David. David did not make excuses or justify his actions. Nathan confronted him with the facts and David confessed immediately. Immediately! May we be as quick to ask God’s forgiveness by confessing when we fall short. We are all vulnerable to some sort of sin that can pull us down to the pit of hell, ask the Lord to give you understanding to know and do the right thing.

Have you ever been betrayed by a trusted friend? We all have had a time when someone we thought was a dear friend used their words and actions to stab our heart and leave us bleeding. The most important part of such actions is that the Lord still wants you to forgive them. But we must remember that they are no longer to be trusted. Be careful who you invite into your inner circle; although all sin and fall short, not all use what they know about us to wound us. Guard your heart and trust it to people who stay close to the Lord Jesus Christ. And may we ask the Lord to keep us from wounding a friend.

I can never read 2 Kings 17:14-15 without at least making a small comment. I still go back to the New International Translation (c. 1997, not a later edition) which reads, “But the Israelites would not listen. They were as stubborn as their ancestors and refused to believe in the Lord their God. They rejected His laws and the covenant He had made with their ancestors, and they despised all His warnings. They worshiped worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” (emphasis are mine)

Let’s take it one step further, reading Acts 14:15 “Friends, why are you doing this (calling Paul and Barnabas gods)? We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them.”

These last two paragraphs pretty much sum up what is happening in the United States today—we have rejected God as a nation so we’ve lost the only Person who can truly give us esteem, worshipping worthless idols and now so many feel worthless. Our worth comes from no other source, only God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Today I finished day 100 in Faithful Promises of God and would like to close with the prayer:

Heavenly Father, You care deeply for me and allow me to go through the pains of life to help me mature in Christ. Help me to learn my lessons quickly so I am pleasing to You. In Jesus name, Amen

God’s Testing

I have many random notes since I last blogged so let’s get started. First, I want to know how you are doing with reading through the Bible. We’ve come through a difficult portion with lots of regulations, the

calling of Joshua, the death of Moses, the death of Joshua, a reminder of the history of Israel and so much more.

Are any of us like Achan, who confesses his sin but still suffers the consequences? Often, we hear false teaching that when we become a Christian, we won’t have problems, we won’t suffer but that is a lie. Peter reminds us “There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.” (1Peter 1:6-7a) Or we can look at James, “count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” (James 1:2) All this without having sinned but Achan did sin and I suspect he thought, like many of us, that that would be the end. But remember, we will suffer the consequences for our sin. Also remember, it is the right thing to do when you confess your sins to our Lord!

I’ve heard many make the comment that the Old Testament is of no use today but I implore you to continue reading because so often we can see ourselves (as we live our lives) in the behavior of the Israelites.

The Israelites were close to the Lord, wanting to do what He wanted them to do, but within a short time, we see they “did what was right in their own eyes” and that is never good, whether back then or today.

There is a time in Judges 16:20b where Samson woke up not realizing that the Lord had left him. That is so sad but again, we all struggle with the same thing. Life is going good and we stop reading our Bibles, we “get so busy” with life and don’t pray as often, and before we know it, we forget to seek the Lord in the most important situations of our life. Indeed, the Old Testament is of great relevance.

Ruth is a remarkable little book that does show us that God uses women. Not only does He use women, He uses women that aren’t one of His chosen. Let’s bring to mind that He used Tamar (Gen 18:1-30). When Judah did not keep his promise, she tricked him and became pregnant by him, giving birth to twins, one of which is in the line of Jesus. Ruth, a Moabite, also gives birth to a child in the line of Jesus, Obed the son of Boaz.

Next, we start through 1 Samuel and find that Israel is pretending to serve the Lord but didn’t pray about decisions concerning going into battle. They put on a show, a pretense of calling for the Ark of the Covenant and paraded it around the battlefield. Not only did they lose the battle but the Ark was taken by the enemy.

The importance of obedience is explain in 1 Samuel 15:22, “What is more pleasing to the Lord; your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” Not only does God ask the question, He gives the answer.

I also thought it important to remind us that God explains mankind as a whole. For those of you that are young, that means both men and women…never thought I would have to explain that. 1 Samuel 24:13 points out, “As that old proverb says, “from evil people come evil deeds.” Jesus makes the same point in Matt 7:16-20, “Beware of false

prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Again, we see that the Old Testament introduces a subject and the New Testament confirms exactly what the Old Testament is teaching.

Finally, I was interested in seeing the subject of 2 Samuel 8 about David going into battle and the defeated people “became David’s subjects and paid him tribute money.” I cannot find a lot written on this in the commentaries but I wonder if that tribute money was like taxes being paid? What would that mean for our country where the citizens pay taxes every year and throughout the year? Instead of giving other countries our tax dollars, perhaps we should be having them pay a tribute. Following the Bible would bring blessings to our country but we are falling further and further away from God’s Word.

The Backbone

Just like our body needs the backbone to support us, to bring stability into our being, so the Word of God has many aspects of bringing stability into our lives. Of course, most importantly, we cannot know this stability unless we are reading the whole Bible. We cannot pick and choose portions of the Bible, for we cannot understand what God is teaching us. But without a personal relationship with the Lord, we are not grasping on to that stability.

As much as Leviticus and Numbers are hard to plow through at times, there is so much wisdom in those pages as well. Leviticus is full of common-sense laws, conduct for our lives to keep us close to Him. From forbidden sexual practices to practices to keep us trustworthy before man and God to laws concerning finances.

Leviticus 19:12 points out, “Do not bring shame on the name of your God by using it to swear falsely,”. Swearing falsely? Is that using God’s name in vain? Or perhaps we need to start with “do not bring shame on the name of your God”. When many of us were growing up, we had such a respect for our parents that we did not want to do anything to make them look bad. Although we all did things “behind their backs” and we thought our parents wouldn’t find out, they did. Not only did we bring shame to our family name but we disappointed our parents.

And so it is, we should have a desire to be pleasing to our parents, to not bring shame to them but more importantly, we should have such a longing to be pleasing to God that we strive daily to not bring shame upon His name. How? How are we to live such a life? We are not perfect, we sin daily, we fall short. But God is there, waiting for us to come to Him and ask forgiveness. He is waiting with open arms!

Leviticus 19:26b reminds us, “Do not practice fortune-telling or witchcraft.” We are living in a day where people think anything goes. We even have books for children on how to cast spells on their family. Evil is evil and we need to stay far away from it. This shouldn’t take anymore explanation but I know there are people laughing and saying that it’s not harmful, just a fun thing to delve into. Practicing the Word of God will never disappoint you.

Leviticus 24:13-23 talks about just punishment for many sins. For some of you, this probably seems harsh but God knows what is best. Rather than stoning someone today, it is probably best to just stay away from such a person who is not living for God. The frustration we feel in these modern times, seeing certain people getting away with sin after sin, is in part due to the Holy Spirit guiding you towards right living and pleasing God. Unfortunately, we don’t have much control over such evil but we can pray. (see Eph 6:10-20) It may seem that prayer doesn’t help much, but we have no idea what is happening in the spirit world. We have no idea of God’s working in another person’s life and the consequences they will suffer for their behavior. Maybe not in this world but certainly in the next.

Leviticus 25:14b reminds us “you must not take advantage of each other.” Such common-sense principles but many people no longer live by such principles. It just takes one person at a time, intent on pleasing God and God alone, to determine to be kind to people, not take advantage, and love them where they are. Are you that person?

This next common-sense law will be controversial, although that is not my intent. “You must not allow a foreigner to treat any of your fellow Israelites harshly.” (Leviticus 25:53b) Some would even say this is not for our time. Perhaps but still it’s a common-sense train of thought. We don’t allow our local citizens to be cruel to one another, we have laws that keep us in line but this is reminding us that foreigners must follow the same laws.

Numbers has always been a hard book for me to read so I try to find something that has meaning to me. Perhaps you can share a passage in Numbers that has meaning to you. I would love to hear from you.

I do find Numbers 14:34 tugging at my heart, “Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins.” Again, some would say this is for that period only but I try to apply it to my life today. When we are not keeping our focus on Jesus, we have a tendency to go with our emotions, to react too quickly, to act immature and believe me, we suffer the consequences of such behavior. Think twice before leaving God’s side and going your own direction. Before making any decisions, look to God for answers, whether reading the Word, praying…or both…He does have the answers.

I made a little note as I was reading, “making atonement means making it right before the Lord. (purify)” Perhaps we can have a discussion on what it means to you to be pure before God?