Restoration.

Readings for May 30, 2015: 2 Samuel 14-17; Psalm 74.

In the course of our lives we’ve all experienced broken relationships. Broken relationships between parent/child, husband/wife, brother/sister, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.  We’ve all suffered the pain of a bruised, bent, even broken relationships.

David suffered a ton of it in his own family, especially with his children.  At this time in David’s rule Absalom stood unofficially banished from the king because he had murdered Amnon.  David longed for Absalom to come home, but did nothing to bring him home.  It took the wise intervention of his commander in chief to bring his son home.  A wise woman told him: “But this is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from him.”  What she was telling David is this: If God doesn’t want the banished to stay banished, why would we let the banished stay banished?  Why wouldn’t we want to do whatever it took to bring the exile home?

Good question.  We were banished from God’s face, exiled from eternity, and doomed to eternal death.  But God devised a way, his own arm worked salvation for him, to bring the exile home, to restore the banished, and rescue those (us) doomed to death.  He reconciled us to himself by the death of his Son Jesus.  He restored us back to the standing of sons and daughters of God.

If this is what God has done, why would we not desire the same?

Take a moment and look the broken relationships in your life.  Is it your marriage? Your siblings? Your children? Your parents? Your friends? Your boyfriend/girlfriend?

What plan can you lovingly devise to restore the relationship with them? This is what God has done for you.  He devised a plan to restore you and to bring the banished home.  Let’s do the same in all our other relationships.  As much as it depends on you, do whatever it takes to bring the exile home and bring the banished back.

Lord God, you desires broken and bent relationships healed.  You did this between you and me when you sent your Son, Jesus, to reconcile me with you.  You truly restored me with yourself.  You truly brought me back at great cost to yourself.  And so I get to come into your presence.  You desire the same reconciliation in all my other relationships.  Make me just like you in these relationships.  Make me just as zealous and eager to restore those relationships in my life no matter what the cost to me.  Amen.

Rest.

Readings for February February 27, 2015: Leviticus 25-27, Proverbs 17:15-28.

In December of 2013 Gallup did a poll (as they regularly do) of how much American sleep in an average night. They said, “Fifty-nine percent of Americans get seven or more hours of sleep at night, while 40% get less than seven hours. Those figures are largely unchanged from Gallup polls in the 1990s and 2000s, but Americans, on average, slept much more in the 1940s. Americans currently average 6.8 hours of sleep at night, down more than an hour from 1942.”

We could talk about the reasons that we sleep less now than we did back in 1942.  We could talk about the responsibilities that we have at work.  Our jobs require much more of us than they did in 1942.  We could talk about our constant availability by phone or email.  People can get a hold of us at all hours of the day or night.  We could talk about our constant ability to be at work.  It takes me 3 minutes or less to get to work.  All I have to do is turn on my cell phone to check and email, or flip open my computer to a document.  It’s so easy to always be working.

God commanded his people to stop working.  He told his people to stop working once a week, to rest on the seventh day.  He told his people to stop working, to stop working in the fields every seventh year (ever heard of a Sabbatical?).  He commanded them to count off seven rounds of these Sabbath years and then take off an extra year; they called it the year of Jubilee.  God built REST into his people’s life.  Why?

Part of it was absolutely practical.  He knew that the bodies of his people needed rest.  He knew that the land his people tilled needed to lie fallow from time to time.  He knew that both the land and his people needed rest and recover.  But it was also spiritual.  Think of it.  What did God want his people to learn when they didn’t work for a day?  What did God want his people to learn when they didn’t work for a whole year in the fields?  What did God want his people to learn in the year of Jubilee (when it was more like two years off!)?  Part of it was spiritual.  He wanted them to learn to trust him.  In all their work it was easy for them to be and to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.  “I go to work to put bread on the table.”  But on the Sabbath day and more so in the Sabbath year it was totally up to God to make sure they had bread on the table.

God wants us to rest too, not to put up our feet and pretend we have no responsibilities. But wisdom from God says that it’s a good idea to sleep. Our bodies need it.  Wisdom from God says that it’s a good idea to take a vacation.  Our bodies and minds need it.  Our bodies have the same physical needs now as his people’s did then.

It’s not just rest for the body that we need though.  It’s rest for the soul.  God wants us to trust him to take care of us.  God wants us to trust him to make sure our jobs, the world and everything in it will be just fine while we grab some sleep at night.     You can trust him to rule the world and your lives even while you sleep.  So, rest well this weekend (and we’ll see you in church!).

Psalm 127:1-2 – “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.”

Father, help me to trust you all day long as I do my work, trusting you to bless the work of my hands and establish your good purposes.  Tonight, help me to shut it all down and to sleep well, knowing that you rule the world, knowing that everything will be okay while I sleep, most of all knowing that I am loved and forgiven.  Give me rest of body and of soul.  Amen.

Rest.

Readings for January 6, 2015: Exodus 35-37, Proverbs 7.

The week is almost over.  Tired yet?  Friday (or maybe for you Saturday) is like a finish line for your week.  We run, we work really hard and then take a little time to let our bodies rest and recover before we do it all again.  It’s part of the rhythm that God built into creation when he put it all together.  He created the world and rested on the seventh day.  He told his people to work for six days and then to rest on the seventh day. 

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your hold day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord.  However does any work on it is to be put to death. Exodus 35:2

Why did God want us to rest so strenuously that he added death to it if there was failure to obey?  Why was rest such an important thing for God to pass on to us?

Our bodies need it.  As someone who likes to train my body I understand that important concept of rest and recovery.  I can’t train my body all out all the time or else I will never see any gains.  My training breaks my body down; but my recovery is really what makes it stronger.  Our bodies need that time to rest and recover.

Our emotions and our minds need it.  To put it somewhat crudely, our emotions and minds are like some older computers that might overheat.  We’d have to shut it down for a while, cool it down, let it come back to normal before we could use it again.  Our minds and emotions have to shut down and rest for a while.  They need that time to recover.

But deep within our spirits needs to rest too. Our souls need it. They need to rest and recover, but they don’t need a time.  They don’t need time off from church and other things.  They don’t need time off from anything to rest spiritually.  We need time on… better yet time IN.  Time IN God’s Word.  That’s what the people were to do on the Sabbath.  Take time OFF from work so that they could take time IN God’s Word.  Normally during the week we don’t have time off to be able to worship.  So we take time OFF from work to take time IN God’s Word.  But this rest is ours every day.  We don’t have to wait for a day off to rest to rest spiritually.

Here it spiritual rest: Rest in Jesus!  Now.  Today.  Don’t wait.  He has forgiven all your sins.  He has paid your debt.  Forgiveness means he has taken the guilt and the punishment from our conscience.  No guilt. No punishment.  Add to this that Jesus has met all God’s expectations for you.  You don’t – wait, you can’t – work extra hard today trying to do the right thing to meet God’s expectations.  Jesus has already met all God’s expectations for you.  He rules the world and cares about us more than we know.  The promises of God give rest to our souls.

As you get up and go to work today, as you rest your bodies this weekend, rest your hearts in the promises of God! They give a rest that no nap or vacation can bring.  They bring rest for the soul.

Jesus, relieve my heart of stress and worry.  Give rest to my heart and help me serve your joyfully.  Amen.

Seeking!

There are two choices for us this year and we see them side by side in the readings this last week.  Pastor Jeff Gunn blogged about it and talks about the stark contrast there is in the two paths we can take as followers of Jesus. One is a path that walks with Jesus, seeks him, follows him, obeys him.  This path is tough because it goes against everything that’s natural to us.  This is the path that God says is “blessed” (Psalm 1).

One is a path that seeks me, my desires (boy, that fruit sure looks good!), my wants.  It’s a path that’s way easy because it goes right along with everything that’s normal to us.  Yup, I said it. It’s normal and natural for us to do what God doesn’t want.  God identified that for us when he said, “Every inclination of the thoughts of humans is always evil all the time” (Genesis 8:21).  Easy as it is, this path leads only to destruction.  Sadly, this is the path the people of the past (and we) often want to walk.  Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Cain killed his brother.  Noah got drunk and his son laughed about it.  The world was so wicked God wiped almost everybody by a flood.

God had a choice too and it would have been absolutely just.  Destroy Adam and Eve in the garden the moment they tasted the fruit.  After all, he had said, “The day you eat of the fruit, you will die.”  Destroy Cain for killing his brother, after all God had warned Cain about it quite strenuously.  “Told you so,” he could have said.  But God went further.  I’ll make sure that you live a full and long life.  Yes, God did destroy the world by water.  But did you notice… how long did God wait before the flood came?  And did you know that Noah was a preacher during that time (cf. 2 Peter 2:5)?  God could have destroyed everyone and would have been absolutely just in doing it.

But. He. Didn’t!

Instead, he loved the world.  He loved Adam and Eve and gave them time to know his love and forgiveness.  He gave them ears to hear the promise of the Savior.  He loved Cain and made sure he had a long and full life so that he’d repent.  He loved the world and gave them time and a preacher so that they might believe.  God was patient.  God was seeking.

God is still the same today.  He still seeks us even when – especially when – we don’t seek him.  He chases us down in reckless abandon like a shepherd who leaves behind 99 sheep to go find one lost sheep; Jesus used that picture.  Absolutely crazy.  Bad business decision.  Leave 99 for the 1? But what about the 99?  But that’s the reckless abandon with which our God in heaven loves us and seeks us.  He seeks us passionately.  So passionately he sent his Son to settle the debt we owed him, the Father.

You’re probably reading this because you love your Father in heaven.  Take a moment today to ponder the way God sought you and found you.  Who did he put in your life so that you’d find him and know him?  Was it a parent? A friend? A spouse? A child?  How did you come to faith? Who did God use to seek you out and find you and put you on the path to heaven?  Thank God for those people today.

If you’re reading this because you’re seeking him, take a moment to consider the way that God is working in your life.  What people? What events? What struggles? What questions?   How is God working so that right now you’re seeking him? Know this.  God wants you to be his more than you could ever know, more than you would ever dare believe.  He gave up what was most precious to him (his Son Jesus!) so that you could be his.

Father in heaven, your patient and passionate pursuit is on display.  You never give up on your people; you haven’t given up on me.  You seek me daily. You sent your Son to die for me.  Thank you for the people you put in my life that have led me to you.  Thank you for the things that you’ve used to draw me to you.  Thank you for showing me your great love for me.  Help me to seek you every day all year long.

Note: There are no readings today. Today is a “catch-up day” on readings you might have missed. It is also a day to look back and consider and meditate on what God has taught you in the past readings.  If you ever have any questions or comments, post away!  I’d love to hear from you.

A Good Idea – January 2

Readings for January 2: Genesis 3-5, Psalm 2.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Eve saw the fruit and it looked good to her.  She ate it.  It seemed like a good idea to Cain.  Get rid of Abel and I won’t have to compete for God’s affection anymore.  But, oh what trouble came to them, to the world, to their relationships, even to us because of that one bite from the fruit of that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Sin is like that, you know.  It always seems like a good idea at the time.  I can’t think of a single sin that I’ve committed where I thought, “That’s a bad idea, but I think I’ll do it anyway.”  My conscience may have been screaming at the time, but I wasn’t listening.  And once it sucks us in it destroys us.  Sin destroys us with guilt, with shame. One sin leads to another.

But God never quits on us.  I hope you see that as you read through this section. Look how God seeks Adam and Eve in the garden even after they had blatantly disobeyed him.  Look how God seeks Cain to warn him about his sin, to seek him after he murdered his brother, even to make sure his life was full and long so that Cain would have time to turn back.  God never quits on us, ever.  He seeks us.  He gives us time to turn back to him.  He shows us that he has something better for us, someone better for us – his Son!

In the middle of Adam and Eve’s rebellion and hiding is a nugget that we don’t want to miss.  Genesis 3:15 – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heal.” Right there God promised a remedy to Adam and Eve’s sin, to Cain’s sin, to my sin and yours.  Right there God promised to send his Son to sit on his throne and to be a Savior for us all.  Right there God promised to send his Son to be a refuge for us all.  Psalm 2:12 – “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.  Hide in Jesus!

Father, sin seems like such a great idea, but it only brings me heartache and pain.  Forgive me for being so selfish, self-serving, self-preserving, so self seeking.  You only want what is good for me, to save me, to forgive me, to guide me and to help me.  And you never quit on me as often as I seek my own way.  Help me to find refuge in you and to seek you.  That’s the best idea. Help me do it.  Amen.