The trial of blessing

Often when we think of trials we think of things that happen to us that we would consider "bad". We get sick and have to battle through it. We get in an accident. Our 401K tanks and ruins our retirement plan. A relationship goes sour. We lose a job. All these trials are common to humanity.

But would we consider our blessings a trial? Evidently they can be as we see in the account from 2 Chronicles 26.

Uzziah was one of only eight kings evaluated to be good. The early assessment of him was that (vs. 5), "He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper." It was to Uzziah's credit that he sought the Lord; that He lived in the fear of the Lord.

As he lived this way, blessings came. He was able to conquer his enemies. He was able to fortify many cities. He was able to muster a sizeable army that seemed formidable. His fame spread far and wide. But at the end of the day, Uzziah's blessings turned out to be a trial for him that set him up for a fall.

Verses 15-16 put it well: "And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction." It was actually his blessings that turned out to be a trial for him - one that he did not pass successfully.

Have you ever looked at your blessings as a trial? The fact is they are a trial, for it is during trial that we are tempted to think more of ourselves than we ought, and less of our God than we ought. It is during times of blessing that we are tempted to forget God - to forget that all blessing flow from His hand - and to think that we are something more than recipients of marvelous gifts.

For Uzziah his blessings were a fatal trial. He became proud and at the end of the day the Lord needed to put him in place by afflicting him with leprosy. That brought him back to reality.

How about you and I? Do we see the potential trial in our blessings? When things are going well, when we have received that promotion, when we have made the big sale, when our 401K has blossomed, when our fame is spread......do we see in these blessings the temptation to drift from the God who is the source of all of them?

One way to guard against falling into this trap is to have someone in your life who will speak truth into your life. For a while, Uzziah had Zechariah. Zechariah instructed Uzziah in the fear of the Lord, and that led him to seek the Lord and walk in his ways. One has to wonder where Zechariah was when Uzziah tried to burn incense contrary to the commandment of God. Chances are he was no longer around - no longer speaking into Uzziah's life, helping him to know how to handle the trials of life, including the trial of blessing.

May God help us all to recognize the trial of blessing, and may we, perhaps with the aid of those who will speak truth into our life, avoid the fall that comes when we forget the Giver of all good gifts.

Will He find faith?

The transition from 2 Chronicles 15 to 2 Chronicles 16 is stunning. In chapter 15 Asa is leading the people to follow the Lord fully. Just prior to that when confronted with the massive Ethiopian army he prays this incredible prayer and then is delivered by the Lord. "O Lord, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you. " Asa is leading the people of Judah in the ways of the Lord - it is a refreshing sight!

But when we enter chapter 16 everything changes. Confronted now just with the armies of Israel, Asa looks to Ben-hadad, king of Syria. Instead of looking to the God that had delivered them previously and promised to be with them and give them victory, Asa looked to man. And then....when he was rebuked by the prophet for this, he not only abused the prophet and some of the people but continued in his rebellion. The Lord afflicted his feet but not even that was enough to turn his heart back to the Lord. The text says he didn't seek the Lord but sought the physicians instead.

There are a couple of important points to consider in this passage. The first is that we must persevere to the end in this Christian life. There is no guarantee that the state to which we have attained in our walk will be maintained without effort. Even Paul tells us in Philippians to "hold fast to what we have attained" - to strain forward to what lies ahead and not to fall back. How important it is to "end well". Asa did not do so though God's gracious assessment of him is that he fully followed the Lord.

The second point takes a little more wisdom to apply. We live in a world of inventions and conveniences and discoveries, all of which have the potential to "cause" us look away from the Lord and place our confidence in these things. We look to science and medicine and wealth and intellect / information, and in times of crisis we tend to look at those things first. We look to them for solutions.

Not it is not that we should not look to these things, they may well be the means God ordains to care for us. The person with cancer would do well to seek these means. But ....if we look at these means as the ultimate solution, neglecting the One who truly is our "help in trying times", we will be impoverished because of this and we will not be bringing glory to our God. We will also likely miss the miracle that God may have in store for us. We'll miss the work He might have done had we looked in faith to Him.

The words of Jesus are haunting: Will the Son of Man find faith when He comes? In our day and age of many crisis, but also of many alternate "saviors", may we all look first to our Lord in faith. Let our communion with Him be that which guides us to other means which the Lord might choose to use for His glory.

Catching a glimpse of goodness

Have you ever experienced a moment where you catch of glimpse of God's goodness? I'm not talking about a moment when you learn a new truth necessarily, but a moment when you come to realize the reality of a truth.

I can remember a time personally when life circumstances were very difficult. So difficult they were that I found myself pleading to the Lord for answers. After praying I directed my attention to the devotional I was reading at the time, and what I read that morning was like a specific answer to the prayer I just offered to the Lord. It was stunning! It left me humbled and aware of the depths of the Lord's goodness. It seemed odd that I should learn about the Lord's goodness in such a difficult time, but that was the setting the Lord used to convey more of His reality.

I think that is what Israel experienced in 2 Chronicles 7. No, this was not a time of difficulty, in fact, it was a time of significant accomplishment.

God had made many promises to the His people. Now they stood before a glorious temple (not only because God had filled it with His glory, but because it was made in a magnificient way), built in the middle of their promised land, being dedicated by the son of their greatest king. As Israel took in this situation they were overwhelmed by the Lord's goodness. They indeed caught a glimpse of His goodness. And their response? Verse 3 and following says that "they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, 'For He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.'"

Later in verse 10 it says that Solomon sent the people away "joyful and glad of heart for the prosperity that the Lord had granted to David and to Solomon and to Israel His people." At that moment the people were impacted by the truth that the Lord had showered His goodness upon them, and they could scarely take it in.

This is a truth that all Christians at least acknowledge in their heads. We believe that God is good; we can even list ways that the Lord is good. But there are those moments that God gives us when we are struck with the reality of those moments. Deep in our souls we are moved to understand just how good the Lord is, and when we have those moments we are moved to bow in awe before Him and declare that He is indeed good. His lovingkindness endures forever.

This Christmas season don't miss these moments. With all the busyness of preparations for Christmas, don't neglect taking time to meditate on just how good the Lord is. He came down from His glorious abode to take on human flesh. He came down so that we would no longer have to live in the bondage of sin and death, but could know the freedom of sins sent away, and the fullness of life that comes through His Spirit.

Oh how good is the Lord! His lovingkindness endures forever. May you know the reality of this truth in a deeper way this season!

Study the Scriptures

This excerpt is taken from George Whitefield. It provides great counsel for all of us who are seeking to read throught the Bible.

I will lay down some directions for you to study the Scriptures with benefit.
First, have always in view the purpose for which the Scriptures were written—to show us the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. "These are the Scriptures that testify about me," says our Lord. Look, therefore, always for Christ in the Scripture. He is the treasure hidden in the field, both of the Old and New Testaments. In the Old, you will find him under prophesies, types, sacrifices, and shadows; in the New, revealed in a body to become a propitiation for our sins as a priest, and as a prophet to reveal the whole will of his heavenly Father.
Have Christ, then, always in view when you are reading the Word of God, and this, like the star in the east, will guide you to the Messiah, will serve as a key to everything that is obscure, and will unlock to you the wisdom and riches of all the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
Second, search the Scriptures humbly—childlike. God hides the sense of them from those who are wise in their own eyes and reveals them only to babes in Christ, who hunger and thirst for righteousness and crave pure spiritual milk, so that they may grow by it.
Imagine yourselves, therefore, when you are searching the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, to be with Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. And be as willing to learn what God will teach you as Samuel was, when he said, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears."
Third, search the Scriptures with a sincere intention to put in practice what you read. A desire to do the will of God is the only way to know it. To those who desire to know from his Word who he is, that they may believe on and live by and to him, he will reveal himself as clearly as he did to the woman of Samaria, when he said, "I who speak to you am he."
Fourth, in order to search the Scriptures still more effectively, make an application of everything you read to your own hearts. For whatever was written in the book of God was written for our learning. And what Christ said to those before, we must look on as spoken to us also, for since the Holy Scriptures are nothing but a revelation from God how fallen humanity is to be restored by Jesus Christ, all the precepts, threats, and promises belong to us and to our children, as well as to those to whom they were immediately made known.

Fifth, labor to attain that Spirit by which they were written. The Scriptures have been compared to the cloud that went before the Israelites. They are dark and hard to be understood by the natural self, as the cloud appeared dark to the Egyptians. But they are light to Christians, as that same cloud, which seemed dark to Pharaoh and his house, appeared bright and altogether glorious to the Israel of God.
How could it be otherwise? For God, being spirit, cannot communicate himself any other way than in a spiritual manner to human hearts, and consequently if we are strangers to his Spirit, we must continue strangers to his Word, because it is altogether like him, spiritual. Labor therefore earnestly to attain this blessed Spirit; otherwise, your minds will never be opened to understand the Scriptures aright, and remember, prayer is one of the most immediate means to get this Holy Spirit.
Therefore, sixth, before you read the Scriptures, pray that Christ, according to his promise, would send his Spirit to guide you into all truth. Intersperse short interjections while you are engaged in reading. Pray over every word and verse, if possible, and when you close the book, most earnestly implore God that the words that you have read may be engrafted into your hearts and bring forth in you the fruits of a good life.
Do this, and you will, with a holy violence, draw down God’s Holy Spirit into your hearts. You will experience his gracious influence and feel him enlightening, reviving, and inflaming your souls by the Word of God. You will then not only read, but observe, learn, and digest what you read—and the word of God will be food and drink to your souls.
Seventh, read the Scripture consistently, or, to use our Savior’s expression, "Diligently study the Scriptures." Dig in them as for hidden treasure, for here is an allusion to those who dig in mines, and our Savior would by it teach us that we must take as much pains in constantly reading his word, if we would grow wise by it, as those who dig for gold and silver. The Scriptures contain the deep things of God and therefore can never be sufficiently searched by a careless, superficial, cursory reading, but by an industrious, close, and humble application.

Extravagant Grace

Each of our readings today though coming from such different contexts all speak to the extravagant grace of God. How good is He!

In 1 Chronicles 29 David is preparing the materials needed to build a temple for the Lord. He begins by personally giving to this project, and one gets the sense that he gives lavishly. Then he calls others to give, and they too give in abundance. As David looks at all that is before him which he and his people gave to Lord, one might think that he would feel pretty good about himself. Instead he ushers out in praise to the Lord. He can't imagine why God would allow them to give as lavishly as they have. He acknowledges that all they have is from God and the fact that they can give so much only points to the lavish grace of God. (What a great perspective for all of our giving.)

Then in 2 Peter 3, Peter comments on the patience of God. This world is headed for a judgment by fire and it is certainly deserving of it. Mankind's neglect of God and practice of all manner of lawlessness certainly gives God the right to end it all in judgment. But Peter says our Lord is full of patience and that His patience is what leads to the repentance of many. Oh yes, there will come a day when the heavens are dissolved and God puts into place a new heaven and earth, but for now He waits patiently for the repentance of sinners - and how longsuffering has been His patience! This, too, is an evidence of His extravagant grace.

This same theme of judgment is seen is our reading of Micah. God is obviously nearing the time when he will judge His people and exile them. But mixed in with the themes of judgment we often find themes of restoration. God endures for centuries the neglect of His people, and when He finally brings them to judgment, before it even occurs he is talking about a time of restoration. Wow! How extravagant is the grace of our Lord. I am afraid I would not have responded as He did.

Finally, in Luke 15 we see the younger son leaving his father and squandering his estate with loose living. He returns repentant, realizing the folly of his way, ready to become a hired hand. But the father's response to him is amazing. Instead of taking him up on his offer to no longer be a son, the father interrupts the speech, and then begins lavishing grace on his son. He clothes him with a robe, puts a ring on his finger, prepares a calf and calls on his household to rejoice. Again we see how extravagant is the grace of our Lord Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, do you know this grace? Have you pondered its depth and width and heighth? Have you considerd how extravagant is the Lord's grace to us? As we enter this joyous season remembering the entrance of the divine Son in our world, let us ponder anew what a great gift of grace we have been given. It will make your holiday celebration all the more joyous!

Motivation for leading and living

As I have been reading through the Bible this year one idea keeps popping up. It has to do with motivation - both how I motivate myself and how I motivate others. In our readings today I came across it again. Let me explain.

In 1 Peter 5, Peter is giving counsel to elders. In verse 2 he says, "shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly;..."

Here Peter touches on motivation for exercising oversight as an elder. And what is that motivation to be? He says not to lead "out of compulsion but willingly". That is the biblical motivation that I keep running up against throughout the Bible. Motivation for leading and for living is to come, not from some external source, but from the inside, from our heart.

Paul uses a similar motivation in the book of Philemon. He says he could command Philemon to do what he wants - after all he is the apostle Paul. He has authority. But Paul does not want him to be motivated from the outside. He actually wants him to be motivated from the heart - actually from love.

I think Peter has the same thing in mind. He wants elders to lead not for some reason outside themselves - say, because other people expect or require them to do so, but instead Peter wants them lead willingly, from the heart.

But having said that he wants them to be motivated from the inside, he goes on to say that the internal motviation needs to be right as well. Peter say, "...not for shameful gain, but eagerly...." With these words he suggests that a leader could be motivated to lead by an inward desire to get something from it. In this case it seems that leaders could be motivated by monetary gain. Peter says that that is not an appropriate inner motivation.

It is in fact that motivation that ruined Israel. In Micah's prophecy in the 11th verse he states, "Its heads give judgments for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money;...." It seemed all the leaders has one motivation - it was profit, and because their motive was self-grasping they were leading the nation down the path to judgment and destruction.

Instead our motive for leading, and in fact living the Christian life, must be the internal compulsion of love. That is the only one that is pleasing to God and that will be beneficial for our lives and the lives of those around us.

Have you thought about what motivates you these days? Is is something external to you? Is someone putting pressure on you to do certain things? The way you might know this is true is to ask yourself the question if you would continue doing the things you are doing if that person was no longer around. This is an important point for parents in that we must teach our children to "behave" not because of our external control of them, but because they have learned to respond from the heart.

And if we are internally motivated, is our motivation pure and self-giving? It is too easy to be motivated by our self-grasping nature. We might lead so that we gain power or prestige in the eyes of others. Such motivation never benefits oneself or those who serve.

As you consider your life today, and your leadership, if God has so placed you, ....consider from where your motivation comes, and of what character it is. It is best to be motivated by the purity of your love for the Lord and His people. That will be for your good and the good of those whom you serve.

A prayer to keep you from falling

In our reading today we were confronted with examples and warning regarding "falling away". First in 2 Kings 21 we were introduced to the life of Manasseh. Manasseh was the son of the good king, Hezekiah, but unfortunately he did not follow in his father's footsteps. In fact, all the reforms his father initiated, Manasseh turned around. In fact, God's assessment of Manasseh is as bleak as it could be. In verse 9 it says, "But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel." Can you imagine that? The Lord declares that one of the kings of his people led them astray to do more evil than the nations the Lord had driven away. That is a far and deep fall from the Lord's intentions for His people.

As we look into the book of Hebrews, chapter 3, we are given a warning. In verses 7ff, the author warns, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their hearts; they have not know my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" The author concludes with these words, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God."

Finally, in the book of Hosea, the 14th chapter we have this exhortation. "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord;..." This sentiment is seen throughout the book. Israel had fallen from its privileged position and the prophet was calling them to return.

How prominent are these kinds of words in the Scripture! God's people have been so prone to wander. Is there any hope?

We pick up at least two helps for the wandering heart. The first is to daily say the prayer found at the end of Psalm 139. "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

This God, who is so intimately acquainted knows our hearts. There is nothing hidden from Him. It makes sense that we ask the Lord to reveal to us what we may not see. The Lord sees those seeds of "falling away" and He is able to bring things into our lives to show us that they are there. Often in those trying times, God shows us those "hurtful ways" and if we remain tender to Him and rely on His grace, we can dig them out before they take root.

A second aid to avoid falling away is folow the counsel of Hebrews 3:13. "But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today', that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." This means that we must be committed to community with God's people, and not just "hanging out" with others, but speaking into their lives. For when we speak into the lives of others we will be speaking into our own lives as well.

Brothers and sisters, Christ lives in us through His Spirit. He is strong and powerful enough to show us those hurtful ways and to lead us into His way everlasting. May we pursue with His help all that He intends for us individual and as a people.