Message:  I Peter 3 is a continuation of the call to submission we read yesterday. Chapter 2 began with a command to submit to government authorities and local leaders, then slaves submitting to masters, and now in chapter 3 he called wives to submit to husbands. In between each of these commands he acknowledged that we are submitting to flawed humans and in some cases even unkind or cruel masters. Peter pointed out the purpose in all of it and reminded us of the importance of living as free people even when we are suffering under harsh or unfair circumstances. Our freedom and righteous living during these difficult and unfair circumstances will convict hearts and God will reward those who press through oppressive situations knowing that we are honoring God and that ultimately, he is our rewarder. Man can never make right the injustices of man so in just that respect it makes more sense that God would right the wrong. This is a tough pill to swallow if our eyes are focused on human social justice. We want the guilty to pay and we want it now. As I was thinking about this yesterday, I was quickly reminded that we want justice when we are unfairly treated, but justice is not one-sided. It requires something out of us that we can’t pay. Nobody comes out of this clean. Our salvation is based solely on the fact that we couldn’t pay for the injustices we caused but the only one in the world who has ever been perfect paid for ours by suffering injustly. To be in Christ is to suffer like Christ. Verse 17 reminds us that we are going to suffer regardless, but it’s better to suffer injustly while doing good, than to suffer the consequences of doing wrong because we will eventually be rewarded for persevering through the unjust suffering. Our suffering due to our own wrongdoing brings us no reward. Not only are we rewarded for suffering well, but our patience and obedience to God through suffering is a testimony and a witness to those around us and even to those who oppress us. The most important point that I keep taking from this is that in order to suffer well in this we have to have the mindset that we are not victims. When Jesus was crucified he said that nobody was taking his life, he was laying it down. Even Pontius Pilate told him “don’t you know I have the power to kill you or let you live?” From the outside if appeared that Jesus was under the power of humans, but we know that at any time he could have obliterated them all if he chose to. He submitted to the suffering of death by the hands of humans who thought they were in power in order to accomplish something far more powerful. If we can grasp this concept, we can endure anything. We are not suffering powerlessly under the hands of men. We are submitting to it knowing that God is our ultimate authority and he is who we are answering to. We are suffering for a purpose and this changes everything!

Message:  In 1 Peter 2 Peter was talking about suffering. Several times in this chapter he refers to the believers as temporary residents to remind them that the kingdoms of earth are not the ones we are hoping in or fighting for. He directs them (and us) to submit to every human authority because of the Lord whether it is the Emperor as supreme authority or the local civil governments. He even goes as far as telling slaves to submit to their masters-not only the gentle ones but also to the cruel ones. He said all of these things, but he told them (and us) to live as free people. It sounds like an oxymoron but in verse 15 he tells us that it is God’s will to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. He describes us all as God’s slaves living as free people. I had to think about that one for a minute. I don’t believe he was asking us to be victims. He is telling us that if we submit to unfair treatment with the understanding that this world is not the final destiny or authority over us we can suffer well without being crushed in spirit. In verse 19 he tells us that when we endure unjust suffering with our mindset on pleasing God we gain favor with God. Verse 21 tells us that we were actually called to suffer this way because we are following Jesus who never sinned and suffered unjustly. This goes completely against the grain of the American belief system. Americans are all about our rights and will fight literally to the death to protect those rights. Peter is telling us that if we surrender to God he will give us favor when we submit to authorities even if (and especially if) they cause us to suffer. The difference between being a victim and suffering in Christ is that a victim is hopeless and suffers in vain but when we suffer we can accept that our suffering and pain has purpose because we are being obedient to God and we have hope knowing that our sacrifice is pleasing to God and we will be rewarded for it.

Message:  In 1 Peter 1 Peter is encouraging the believers in several providences of Rome because they were gentile believers foreign to the land they were in and they were enduring quite a bit of persecution. Peter is reminding them of not only the hope of eternity waiting for them, but the importance of living “distinctly”. The dictionary definition of “distinct” is “recognizably different in nature from something else of a similar type.” Peter was calling them to live recognizably different in nature from everyone else. I think the words “in nature” are also important here because being distinctly different can’t be faked. To be different in nature is very different than playing the part. Our lives should look different in deeper ways than surface level. We should not be different people for different situations. Obviously there are people in our lives that we are able to be more relaxed with but this still should not change the character of who we are. This is not religious behavior. It’s an attitude of the heart that makes our reactions and intentions look different. When pressure is on like these believers were experiencing, how do we respond and react? Does my response look distinctly different in nature? This challenges me to evaluate my life and ask what things make me fit in, and which things make me distinct.

Message:  Today I noticed an interesting parallel between the story and Judges 11 and the directive in James 5. In Judges 11 we read about a man named Jephthah who had been driven out of his homeland by his brothers because his mother was a prostitute. When they were in trouble, they sent for him and asked him to lead them into victory over their enemies. Obviously he had some questions, but ultimately he accepted and then he swore an oath to God that the first thing that came out the door of his home when her returned would be sacrificed to God. An oath is and was a very serious thing so when he returned home and his daughter came out the door to greet him he was devastated but honored the oath. I feel like if this story happened with any of us we might try to justify our way out of it because it was so harsh. The point of this story was that God never asked for that sacrifice. Jephthah had been living in another land where human sacrifices were made to their gods in exchange for their favor, but because he swore the oath he was obligated to it. People (especially in these times) did not go back on an oath. An oath was absolute. Even if it was wrong. We see lots of oaths made by kings and leaders throughout the bible. In James 5 verse 12 James is warning that using an oath to promise something that we don’t intend to fulfill is wrong. He says that instead “let your yes be yes and your no be no so you don’t fall under judgment.” We don’t see a lot of oaths in our culture but we do make legal oaths for things like marriage or debt. Unfortunately, the culture we live in does not honor oaths well at all. People choose whether to honor them based upon how it will play out for them. “We fell out of love” or “the housing market crashed and we were upside down in our mortgage so we let it go” are common in our culture. To be clear, I’m not judging anyone here. Everyone has circumstances, but my point is that we are in a culture that allows the circumstance to dictate whether we will fulfill our oath or not. Usually in our culture we say things like “I promise” or “I swear I will” or “I swear I won’t”. When we don’t fulfill the promise our word we trump our promise with an excuse or circumstance and if we do this often our credibility becomes useless. We need to be people who are faithful to our word, and we also need to be selective about what we promise. There are some things we are unable to promise because they are beyond our own control. In the case of Jephthah, there are some things that don’t require an oath. God would have delivered Israel without the oath but since he spoke it he was bound by it. How many things have we spoken and broken unnecessarily? This challenges me to pay attention to the things I commit to doing. Not just the things I expressly say “I promise” to, but everything that I say I am going to do should be treated like a promise. This means I have to be quiet in other situations so that I’m not acting like a people pleaser by putting myself under obligation for things I don’t have the time to complete, or have no business being involved in. For me this has been a work in progress. I have had a long history of obligations because I promised to do things I should not have committed to.

Message:  In chapter 4 James is addressing the fighting and wars going on within the church. According to the footnotes in my bible there was jealousy, conflict and division and there were factions within the church. As hard as it is to believe, some had even murdered. James points to the root of it all as pride. Pride elevates our own status and it also is what gives us the audacity to believe we deserve certain things or places of power or authority. I find it interesting that hidden within all of this description we find a very well-known scripture on the back end of verse 2 “you do not have because you do not ask.” We usually put this scripture in the context that we should pray for the things we want but verse 3 continues “you ask but don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your evil desires.” If we keep this all of this in the proper context, we can see that James is really dealing with the root problem that pride causes us to desire things improperly. It might be lustful desires, material desires and it might be power or authority. It might be all of those things depending upon how deeply we are caught up in pride. Pride is selfish and is self-absorbed. It tells us that we are smarter or more deserving. Our pride also devalues other people and blinds us from seeing the gifts and strengths of other people around us. Pride causes us to make selfish decisions that harm ourselves and others, and it minimizes the negative impact those decisions have on others. Verses 4 and 5 take things to another level when he calls the church “adulteresses” because pride and self-centeredness is in direct opposition to God and is an attribute of the world. He tells them that their friendship with the world’s ways is hostility toward God and makes us an enemy of God. As I was writing this I visualized a puffer fish. It literally puffs itself up when it feels threatened. Most animals do this in some way also by trying to appear bigger in response to fear. We laugh when we see something scare our little kitten and his tail puffs out. It’s funny to us because he isn’t any bigger with his tail puffed out and we can clearly see this is a fear response. We respond to fear and threats in the same ways but we usually don’t recognize this within our own behavior. So what is the antidote for this? Verse 7 says “submit to God”. If pride is a submission to ourselves and our own desires, then humility is submission to God and his desires. Verse 7 has another familiar verse tacked onto the back end of it “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” We often hear that half of the scripture quoted alone but if we read the whole thing in context we see that resisting the devil comes by submitting to God. When we submit to God we are humbled and the devil flees. This sounds so opposite of our natural instinct to rise up and stand our ground. If we rise up and try to stand our own ground our pride will try to fight, and the devil is happy to oblige. If we humble ourselves and submit to God the devil recognizes God’s authority and leaves. This is not passive behavior. Humility is a powerful force. It’s not insecure so it doesn’t need to prove itself or puff itself up. It stands in firm submission to God against all opposition and against all of the desires and insecurities of the flesh.  This is a challenge for all of us every day. As we become more and more submitted to God, humility becomes our strength. We will never stop the battle within ourselves entirely, we only keep it at bay by being intentional about it and learn to recognize when we allow our insecurities to puff us up. My challenge to myself is to pay attention to that internal struggle when it rises up in me so that I can submit it to God before it manifests itself outwardly in my attitude and behavior.

Message:  James 3 is a well-known chapter about taming the tongue. I have always read this as a warning against gossip and negativity. While I still feel like that applies, reading through it all in context gave me a different understanding. Verse 1 begins with a warning that not many should become teachers because it comes with a higher standard of judgment. Teaching other people means we are responsible for what we teach and how it affects those that hear it. If we teach misinformation, we are responsible for those who hear it and follow. The tongue articulates the things we believe and is compared to the rudder steering a ship. That’s a fascinating analogy in this particular context because what we believe comes out in what we say and literally steers our direction. The tongue is also compared to a small fire that catches an entire forest on fire. This kind of effect can be for the positive but because of our sinful nature it has the potential to take out an entire forest. The tongue is also compared to a tamed wild animal. It’s rare to tame a wild animal already, but verse 8 says it is even more difficult to tame the tongue. This is where it begins to sound less like teaching and more about negativity, but if I keep teaching in mind I see that it is still very relevant. Our words are described like deadly poison and verse 9 points out that we praise the Lord with it and we also curse men who are made in God’s image with the same tongue. This makes complete sense in the context of gossip and negativity but as I played out the category of teaching I started to realize all of the ways we have used our tongue to try to “educate” other people in what we believe to be true. Right now there are all kinds of debates going on over social media because everyone sees things a bit differently and many are spending their time trying to preach their views and opinions to others. The problem is that our views are not necessarily correct and if we poison others with our incorrect information. In Paul’s letters to the churches he often said he was determined to know nothing except Christ and him crucified. This was a safeguard not only to keep focused but to keep the gospel pure. I have heard my share of bible studies going off topic and I have heard plenty of misapplications and misunderstandings. The truth is, we are all going to make mistakes but we need to stay grounded in the word and in prayer so that the Holy Spirit will guide us into truth that we can teach.

Message:  James 2 starts off by warning us not to show favoritism. The example used was treatment of a poor man versus treatment of a rich man. If we elevate the value of a rich man and devalue the poor man we are wrong because we are making judgements and assumptions about his value based on his possessions. Before we clear ourselves of guilt from this one I think it’s important to acknowledge that the poor man/rich man scenario was only an example. There are so many other possible ways to show favoritism or partiality. Maybe by fame or reputation. Maybe by skill or talent. Maybe my influence or education. In the example they were were talking about favoring one by giving him an honored seat, as opposed to the lack of favor to the one that was was asked to sit on the floor or act as a servant. We don’t all have the authority to give that kind of status in the church, but we all are a temple of our own so we do choose who receives the place of honor in our own lives. Which voices are we willing to listen to? Maybe to wealthy or famous people because “they made it” or educated people because we believe they are smarter? Maybe we only value the opinions of people who think the way we do. Who do we treat like a servant? Which voices in our lives do we silence and disregard? Who do we see as beneath us? My challenge to myself in this is to evaluate how much weight certain opinions have in my life and why. Some may be for the right reasons but we have to be willing to ask the why to make sure our trust is not blinded or misguided by anything apart from the wisdom of God.

Message: James 1 starts off with a bang when he tells us to “count it all joy when we experience various trials knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance.” As Christians I feel like we spend a lot of our time trying to avoid trials and when we are in them we are busy trying to pray ourselves out of them. Sometimes we get caught in the trap of trying to understand “why” and find ourselves on a continuous loop leading to nowhere. If our primary goal is to get out of our trials the chances are pretty slim that we are actually learning how to endure them well. These are the most important moments for us to step back and ask God what he is teaching us through the trial. The problem is that we don’t think to do that if we have a mindset that we aren’t supposed to be going through it in the first place. It’s important to note that James was not telling us “if we go through a trial here’s what to do”. He is saying “when you go through trials”. Trials are normal and they produce character in us but only if we let them. Imagine going to a gym and walking around all of the equipment because it’s in your way and you don’t understand why it’s there? People who work out don’t enjoy pain, but they subject themselves to it because that pain has purpose. Every time we work out a muscle it becomes stronger. Trials and testing our a normal part of life. God never promised to remove them. He promised that he would never leave us or forsake us, and he promised to walk with us through them. Now imagine being in that gym again and this time you get on the equipment with a trainer or coach standing by instructing and encouraging you? You are presented with the same obstacle and the same pain but this time it ha purpose and you are now celebrating your gains. Here is where verse 4 comes into play because it says “endurance must do it’s complete work so that we may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” If we don’t embrace the trial and let it work some character into us, our pain will be in vain. But if we embrace the trial and all of it’s pain it will develop character in us and strengthen our faith and our hope. There is so much more going on in James 1. This is one of my favorite books of the bible, but I just wanted to focus on these first few verses because it sets us up for how we handle and process life. If we don’t get this we will be frustrated walking into a continuous loop. If we do get it we will be able to handle anything that is thrown at us.

Message:  In the final chapter of Hebrews the author was giving the church some reminders about who they were and what kinds of behaviors should mark their lives. He was careful to point out the difference between obeying God in character as opposed to showing their spirituality by abstaining from certain foods like the Jews had been required to do under the law. The Jews were proud of their obedience to the food laws. It marked them and set them apart from everyone else as God’s chosen and favored people. This made me think about some of the things Christians tend to focus on. There are a whole bunch of things listed that Christians should “do”. The list includes hospitality, sharing and honoring marriage and submitting to leaders who are accountable by God for leading them. While I believe there are many Christians who live this way, we tend to hear more about Christians taking a stand for what they disagree with in the world. Many people don’t know who or what Christians are for, but they know and hear very loudly what Christians are against. I’m not saying that we should change our convictions. What I’m saying is that our lives should be marked and known for these points of character that we are reading about. Hospitality, generosity, honoring marriages and submitting to leaders are just a few of those things. What if we were known by those things? What if our focus was on these character traits? It should be expected that we as Christians won’t violate ourselves by participating in sin, but if we are not intentionally pursuing godly character what difference does it make? Verse 14 reminds us that the world we live in is not the enduring city we should be investing in. We are investing into a world to come so instead of trying to get non-believers to act like Christians in this world, we need to be a light of how believers behave so that the world will not just act like us, but become part of us in salvation.

Message:  Hebrews 12 is very strong, and very familiar. It begins with the call to “lay aside every weight, and the sin that easily entangles us.” The analogy in this chapter is of a race. We all understand the importance of being light-weighted in racing whether we are talking about humans, horses or cars. People spend lots of time and money to make sure humans are in shape, cars have all of the guts necessary but only the bare necessities are included to keep the weight down. Horse jockeys have weight and size limits because everyone understands how important it is to run a race with as little weight as possible. As I was reading this I was thinking about the fact that this scripture separated “weight” and “sin”. In our minds we look at some of the distractions in our lives and we say “but they aren’t bad because they aren’t sin.” We also look at some of them and we feel a little bit of guilt inside (as we continue doing them) because we know deep down that they are keeping us from ‘training’ and slowing down our progress. There was a period of time that I was going through a little grief after my daughter got married and moved out of state. I was feeding my sadness with thrift store shopping, redecorating and restoration projects. It kept my mind occupied and at first it felt like a healthy way to process. Then I realized I ha become obsessed with finding project pieces and décor items. I went to multiple thrift stores and I searched Craigs List and Offer Up constantly. One day I realized that I wasn’t excited or motivated to read or do my devotional because I couldn’t stop scrolling deals on my phone. I thought about it constantly and even my kids were getting annoyed with all of the projects and things going on in the house. I knew I needed to reign it in, but I kept justifying in my head that it wasn’t really wrong. Some people drink in their sadness, and I was creating things. That wasn’t wrong and I would probably encourage someone else the same, BUT it had become a distraction to my purpose. I was not motivated to read and do my devotions because my obsession was crowding it out. While I believe that creativity is a gift that God has given me, and a wonderful hobby for my pleasure, that is not my purpose. I needed to pull back a little bit so that I could fulfill my purpose, and enjoy my creativity instead of obsessing over it. The weight was my obsession, not the act of creativity. This is where we have to really ask God to show us truth in our lives. We are masters at manipulating OURSELVES and we will justify ourselves right out of change. Today I am challenging myself once again to examine my life for blatant sin. Sin is a non-negotiable, but I’m also asking God to identify the weights in my life. Weights can be attitudes, mindsets, obsessions, unforgiveness, negativity…(the list goes on). Have I been putting on weight lately? What are the weights that are slowing down my progress?

Message:  Judges chapter 4 is a big deal for women. It shows that during a time and culture where women did not have equal status with men, God would use them to complete his purpose. What I love about it is there is no “woman power” attitude going on, and there was no pushback from men in spite of the culture. Deborah was a prophetess hearing from God during a time that Israel was enduring punishment for their disobedience. They were being harshly oppressed by Jabin, the king ruling in Hazor. It’s important to note that Hazor was one of the places that God had previously given Israel favor to completely destroy under Joshua’s leadership. When Israel turned from God and rebelled, this nation that had been demolished seemed to rebuild itself so God sold Israel into the hands of their oppressive king. It’s also important to note that this nation was stronger than they were before and had “iron chariots”. The iron chariots looked like an impossibility to Israel.  At that time God was using the prophetess, Deborah to judge Israel so when Israel began to cry out to God she summoned Barak, the army commander and gave him a complete set of instructions. Although her instructions included God’s assurance for their victory, the commander refused to go unless Deborah accompanied them. Everything about this is unusual. Barak lacked confidence both physically and spiritually. Since he didn’t take the words of God at face value, she accompanied him as a representation of God’s favor and instructed him through battle. The victory was credited to her and not to him as commander. In the same chapter God threw the opposing army into confusion and they were being completely destroyed. The commander of the opposing army fled into the tent of a woman that was an ally to his family. She pretended to shelter him and provide comfort and then stabbed him in the temple with a tent stake. The confidence and leadership ability of two army commanders was compromised and God used two women to command and finish off this former foe. There is so much about this story that I find interesting. Why did Barak, the commander of the army of Israel lose his confidence? And why did the opposing commander also cower and hide in a woman’s tent?  In both of these cases the women did not seek this power or authority. They were both positioned by God and he used them to fulfill what typically would have been done by men. I think the biggest factor in all of this was that ALL of this was done by God so that no man or woman would ever be able to credit their own strength or ability. Two major things stood out to me in this. First was the city that had previously been destroyed came back even stronger when Israel rebelled. When God defeats things in our lives we have to stay in obedience. Our rebellion can return us to further bondage than we were in before. The other major thing was the importance of being available for God to position us. Deborah was doing what God had called her to do. She had been the judge of Israel for quite some time and she was doing what she always did when God used her for this task. I don’t believe this was a desire of hers, but God used her because she was listening, faithful and available.

Message:  The past few chapters have contrasted the sacrifices made under the first covenant of the law, with the final ultimate sacrifice Jesus made under the new covenant. The author of Hebrews has shown us that while the system of the law provided a way for their sin debt to be paid for, it didn’t have the power to cleanse the heart from sin. Because the law was a rule keeping system with expensive consequences this system was effective at reducing blatant sin from being repeated often. Kind of like our laws of government. You can rack up some debt if you constantly get traffic tickets so people obey the laws to keep from getting a ticket. This by no means changes our heart or attitude towards the rules or even our government. In fact, we tend to resent the people who enforce those rules. This is what makes the new covenant so beautiful and different. With the debt of all of our sins paid for, past, present and future we don’t have to deal with the expense and the burden of paying for our sin like they did with the old covenant. Jesus paid for it already, but this is not a free pass to do whatever we want. The focus has now shifted to cleansing our hearts of sin. Not just abstaining from it. This is something that wasn’t possible in the old covenant because they were not filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to lead them into truth and cleanse their hearts. In previous chapters of Hebrews we read that repeating our sin was like sending Jesus back to the cross. Obviously that doesn’t happen physically and we know this, but in an unrepentant mindset of sin this is what we are doing when we don’t take seriously the expense that was paid for our sin. In Hebrews 10 the author takes this even further by saying that if we deliberately continue in our sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. The author basically says, ‘you think the punishment for dying without mercy in the law of Moses was bad?- How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and insulted the Spirit of grace?’ He warns us that judgment will come. This is confusing because we talk about not judging people right? We don’t have the righteousness to judge each other but in his mercy God gave us all the opportunity to judge ourselves before the time of his judgment comes. If we don’t take the opportunity to judge ourselves while we are under his grace we are in danger because God said “Vengeance is mine. I will repay. The Lord will judge his people.” God’s grace paid for our sin, and that expensive gift comes with tremendous responsibility. When we accepted his sacrifice for our sin debt, we also traded in our “right” to rule our own lives. We are indebted to him and we belong to him. He is a good God with good plans for us but we cannot forget that he is serious about sin and he requires our obedience.

Message: In Hebrews 9 the author continued the comparison between the old and new covenant by explaining how the old covenant paid for sin on a repetitious basis, but had no power to cleanse the heart. The new covenant paid for sin once and for all and provided the power to cleanse the heart. While the old covenant focused on paying the debt, the new covenant took care of our debt so we could focus on the change. I feel like this is a topic that has become do distorted because Christians call this ‘grace’. Since the bible tells us that we are saved by grace through faith many believe this means that works are the equivalent of us trying to pay for own salvation. The problem with this is it assumes the works are an earning system rather than out of a changed heart. This comparison became clearer to me than ever as I read this today. The people of Israel had to pay a certain amount every time they sinned. This is like the extreme version of a change jar for cuss words. There was an assigned amount they had to pay in sacrifices for each sin. If they slowed down their sin it was motivated by a desire to stop paying for it, but not out of a changed heart. We live in an entirely different system. Our sin was already paid for and this requires a change in us. If we are repeatedly continue the same sin without repentance or taking any steps to change, we are treating the once and for all sacrifice that Jesus made with disrespect. The last chapter said our unrepentant and unchanged sin was like hanging Jesus on the cross all over again. We aren’t required to pay for our sin. We are required to let our freedom from sin change our hearts. We have the power to change because Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to convict and change our hearts. When our hearts are changed the desire for sin changes and we no longer fall into the trap of repeated cycles of sin.

Message: The theme I picked up in the reading today is not anything new, but it contrasted the unfaithfulness of man with the faithfulness of God. In Judges 1 we read about all of the tribes that failed to do what they were commanded to do when they took the promised land. Instead of driving out the inhabitants of the lands they took, they kept the people as laborers. This is brutal to even think about but if we put this into parallel perspective with our own lives, there are promises that God has for us but we will struggle if we don’t drive out the things in our lives that would hinder our dominion in the promises he has for us. If we compromise something God has specifically instructed us to do we will be frustrated with our inability to thrive in our promise. We will see it but not succeed in it. We can’t have our promises fulfilled without being obedient. We can’t minimize the importance of things that we don’t want to deal with, and we can’t bargain with things that oppose God’s plan. It will not work in the long term even if we think we have temporarily done a clever thing to work around it. In Hebrews 8 we were reading about why the first covenant was unable to fulfill God’s plan. The simple answer is because it was a covenant between God and man. God fulfilled his end, but man did not. This is why Jesus came in to make the second covenant and this covenant is perfect because it was made entirely by God. God did all of the work by laying down his life to pay our way, and now we are required to follow after his example by laying down our lives to follow him. This raises the question of “how am I doing in this?”. Have I partially surrendered my life or have I fully surrendered? Is there anything in my life that I won’t allow God to touch? I can usually tell what those things are because I get nervous at the thought of change or loss in certain areas. Is there anything God has not been able to redirect in my life because of my resistance? The challenge today is to simply ask that question. My stomach gets in a knot just saying that because you can’t ask a question like that without expecting God to answer. Sometimes he answers by showing us something, and sometimes he answers by moving or redirecting something in our lives. How will we respond when that happens?

Message:  This morning I noticed another pattern/theme between what we read in the final chapter of Joshua, and what we read in Hebrews 7. In Joshua 24 the people were being prepared for the death of Joshua and the end of his leadership. He was 110 years old and God called him ‘old’ a few chapters back. (I hope you’re laughing because when God himself calls you old, that’s just funny!) Joshua gathered the people and went through their history all the way back to Abraham’s parents. He went through explaining which lands their ancestors went to and how God brought them out of places that served other gods. Then he told them that as long as they served God he would protect them but if they served other gods, God would be against them. He had them swear an oath that they would serve only God and they firmly took that oath with the understanding that their oath would be a witness against them if they did not follow it. Joshua 24 ends by telling us that the entire generation that was gathered that day faithfully served God all the way to the death of the last elder. In Hebrews 7 we read about the priesthood set in order permanently until Jesus came and super-ceded that priesthood. Reading through all of this got me thinking about our family generations. I want my kids to serve God with as much passion (and much more) than I do right now. We all want better for our kids but sometimes we view them differently than ourselves and we want and expect things out of them that we are not willing to do ourselves.  The hard truth is, unless they are self- motivated, or catch their own fire, they will not be taught or motivated to do anything they are not seeing us do. When we run hard for God we set that as a standard of normal in our homes and in our families. We have to set the pace of that higher standard. I thought about how long Israel was faithful and I wondered where the decline began. When I visited Israel and saw all of the different denominations and religious things that came out of it, I wondered where all of that came out of one gospel. The Apostle Paul fought hard to keep the purity of the gospel and we have to fight hard too. We have to make sure we pass on the real true gospel to our families and those we bring into the faith. The only way to pass this on is to live it out passionately. We can’t afford to go through the motions at the cost of another generation. The bible shows us the importance of each generation doing their part. How often do we hear about “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”? The people respected the faithfulness of their ancestors and that lineage of faithfulness should have continued all the way to Jesus. My challenge to myself is that not only will I not allow this to stop with me, but that I would be passionate about making sure my family serves God in this way. Raise the bar and pass it on so that our future generations are not left in the dark.

Message:  In Hebrews 6 the author had just come out of his frustration at the end of chapter over their lack of maturity. Not because they were newbies, but because they had been in the faith for a while and had not shown any signs of growth. He wanted to communicate some deeper things to them but he was discerning that they weren’t ready for it. He elaborated on this in chapter 6 when he called them to a higher level of maturity by stopping the repeat cycle of salvation. I’ve seen this in people before who receive salvation and follow for a bit and then drift off. They feel guilty so they “get saved again” and continuously repeat the process because they never build the discipline of reading the word and surrendering themselves so that God can change them. They know enough to feel guilty, but they never move past this level. From the outside looking in it appears they are being driven by their emotions. Their salvation is an emotional experience but after that initial joy and excitement wears off they are unable to maintain the connection so they drift until something startles them back to salvation. We see the same patterns in people who constantly jump through relationships. They ride the emotional high of emotions from one relationship to another and they can’t seem to develop intimacy with anyone because they aren’t willing to stay plugged in long enough to work through the less exciting emotions. They don’t stay in it long enough to experience the reward of going through something together and developing closeness and trust through it. As I read this my heart is sad for the people who feel disconnected. Just like we have to become vulnerable in relationships with people to build trust and intimacy, we have to become even more vulnerable with God. Surrender is hard but it is absolutely necessary to grow and build. The difference is that we are safe being vulnerable with God. He will never reject us. When we go through things he promises to be with us. So why then are we so afraid to surrender to him? Because we also know that his ways are higher than ours. He won’t cater to our sinful and fleshly desires and he won’t enable us. Surrendering to him means that we will be pulled and challenged. It’s impossible to fully surrender to him without growing.

Message: In Joshua 22 the men who had crossed the Jordan to help their brothers take the promised land were commended, rewarded and sent back home on the other side of the Jordan. The land given to them for their inheritance was not part of the promised land, but they helped fight for it and were still very much a legitimate part of the tribes of Israel. They were afraid that they wouldn’t be seen or recognized as part of Israel by future generations because they were physically separated from the rest of the tribes because of the Jordan River. They built an altar as a symbol that they were part of Israel and worshipped the same God. The rest of the tribes saw the altar and thought they were building it out of rivalry and rebellion, so they came to fight them because of their fear of God’s punishment on all of them. All of this was so ironic to me because although the separated tribes didn’t feellike part of the whole, the rest of the tribes clearly recognized them as part. They came to confront them because they knew from past events that if even one person out of all of Israel sinned and stirred up God’s anger, they would all be punished. At first I didn’t really understand why the altar was seen as a rival or rebellious thing, but as I read through the footnotes in my bible I remembered that they had only ever had one tabernacle and altar. This was set up on the promised land side of the Jordan. If those on the other side had actually used their second altar it really would have caused a very real and very serious separation between them. The irony is that the intent of building it was to construct a symbol of unity, but the implications behind it caused division. The beauty here is that when their brothers came to confront them, they came together instead. The explanation that the altar was a symbol of unity and not an act of division was well received. The conflict was resolved and true unity was achieved. Like a true Hallmark movie ending, everyone came together, named the altar and said “it is a witness between us that the Lord is God”. What I loved the most about this is that the resolve was not that one side or the other was more right. The unity was in the fact that the Lord is God. There is so much opposition going on in our country right now and where Christians are supposed to be representing the Lord’s Kingdom, many are distracted trying to repair the broken kingdoms of this world that have already been marked for destruction. I fully believe in voting and protecting the people around us who are vulnerable and marginalized, but this is a kingdom battle that can’t be fought the world’s way. God’s way is not to repair the kingdoms of the world because they are set on the wrong foundation. What if Christians all over the world put down their weapons and accusations against each other and came together under the unity that the Lord is God. Under that alone there is unity, and in that alone will we recognize the mark of God on each and every person in the world.

Message:  Hebrews 4 is a continuance of the warning that we read in chapter 3 about staying active and aware so that we don’t wander off. The bible often compares wandering to sleeping. In the biblical sense, the word “sleep” is actually referring to death. The thing about sleeping is that we can’t usually pinpoint at what moment it actually happens. When we lay in bed at night after a productive day we might have racing thoughts, ideas and to-do lists firing off in our brains but as we force ourselves to lay still and quiet our thoughts something magical takes place when we cross that line and drift off into dreamland. This is the rewarding kind of sleep that we are supposed to have after a hard day of productive work. Have you ever noticed it’s harder to fall asleep when you’re actually trying? I might lay in bed and think for a while before drifting off into sleep at night, but when I’m at work trying to be productive, I have had times where the struggle was real to stay awake! A sleepy driver might be looking around at scenery in one moment, and fighting the urge to sleep in the next. He may know he is sleepy and despite his desire to stay awake he is completely unaware as his eyes begin to get heavy enough to close. Chapter 4 is all about the appropriate time to “enter into his rest.” This is a promise of eternity in heaven, but now is not that time. Verse 1 warns “let us pray that none of you should miss it.” How do you miss rest? By sleeping at the wrong time and in the wrong place. In this case he was reminding us that many had heard the gospel along with them, but for others “the message did not benefit them since they were not united with them who heard it in faith.” These people were drifting alone and were spiritually fighting the urge to sleep. Like the sleepy driver, people have moments of being jerked awake but if they continue to flutter their eyes they will eventually slide into a sleep that will literally drive them to their death. This is not the kind of rest that was promised and this is a warning that we need to be awake and alert for ourselves, but we also need to nudge others awake who are drifting off to sleep at the wheel.

Message: In Hebrews 3 the author reminds us of both the greatness and the obedience of Moses. Then he steps up to another level to show that as great as Moses was at laying the foundation, Jesus is even greater than Moses. He walked in obedience to rule the house of God to the point of death. This sets us up for verses 8-11 where he quotes the second half of  Psalm 95 to warn us not to harden our hearts to the voice of God like Israel did. He makes the point that all those who died in the wilderness had seen and heard the voice of God but continually chased after their own rebellion so they died in the wilderness in their rebellion, disobedience and unbelief. The sad reminder I picked up on was these were not lost people who hadn’t heard. These were people who heard, saw and understood the greatness of God. It seems like they took for granted that every time they wandered off God would do something to bring them back. They were stuck in a cycle of rebellion and they never got to a point where they took responsibility for themselves. I’ve seen this behavior in young adults who still act like teenagers. They do stupid things, get in to trouble and wait for their parents to bail them out but they never learn to stay on track. God will not be an enabler to our destruction. He is patient and gracious and he won’t give up on us but if we continue to wander off further and further we will gradually become more hardened to the voice of God and are in danger of dying in our rebellion. We are not safe because of what we know. There are billions who will tell you that they “know” God but are not walking in obedience. Salvation is in our surrender and obedience.

Message:  Today I picked up a similar theme between Joshua 19, Proverbs 27 and Hebrews 2. In Joshua we continued reading the allotments that were divided up and given as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel. We have been reading these for the past several days and it feels dry to read it that way but it gives us a clear picture of the boundaries set between each tribe to know where they belonged. If we don’t know what we own or don’t own we will either take no responsibility for that ownership, or we will overtake and assert ourselves into areas that belong to other people. This is not only a financial concept but a law of nature for life in general. It’s what helps us navigate our relationships. In Proverbs 27 we read that we should know the condition of our flocks. This might seem weird if we don’t own any farmland, but in those times flocks and herds were their livelihood. Those flocks produced income and they were also used to pay for things. Again, we have to know what we own and what condition it’s in. This is true of material items we own, but it’s also true of relationships or ministries that are under our care. Material things that are not cared for lose their financial value and reliability. If we don’t maintenance our vehicles or our homes, things will break either permanently or bring down the value and cost us money. When we don’t look after people that are under our care we lose the impact and value of their purpose and so do they. In Hebrews 2 the author warns us about the importance of staying focused on the gospel and not neglecting our salvation. We are reminded that salvation came and too great a cost for us to live stagnant lives and take it for granted. Even as I write this I think about the original purpose that was given to Adam and Eve. They were supposed to be stewards and caretakers of the garden. Whether  we have a lot of things to manage, or a little we have a responsibility to know what those things are and manage them responsibility. Because we belong to God, everything we own and everything in our care belongs to him. This includes our very lives. We are called to manage and care for it all because it all belongs to him.