DNA of Greatness

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Thursday, February 6, 2020

“Look, I now teach you these decrees and regulations just as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy.  Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations.  When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim, ‘How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation!’  For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?  And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?  “But watch out!  Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen.  Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live!  And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren.  Never forget the day when you stood before the Lord your God at Mount Sinai, where he told me, ‘Summon the people before me, and I will personally instruct them.  Then they will learn to fear me as long as they live, and they will teach their children to fear me also.’  Deuteronomy 4:5-10

Reverberating in my mind from the time I was old enough to walk is that I am blessed to live in a great country.  One of the laments we hear often these days is how far America has fallen from her greatness.  The theme that carried the day in this country’s last Presidential election was a call to Make America Great AGAIN.  That last word presupposes the fall, and hoped-for rise back to glory.

As DNA is that which is built-into a person’s life pattern and determines so much of what we know and experience every day, the Greatness Gene is what we imagine is our birthright and destiny.  Born American, we are blessed and destined to shine among the nations of the world, a beacon of light and freedom.

When Moses stood before all the tribes of Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land, he rehearsed for them how God’s greatness had called them out of Egypt, and how God’s Providence guided, protected, and met every need in the wilderness wanderings.  And now they were to cross Jordan, possess the land, and be that great beacon of light to the Gentiles and all nations.

Sometimes we enjoy the light more than appreciate the light’s source.  Recently, Ken, our thoughtful son-in-law gave his mother-in-law a wonderful gift… kitchen lighting above and below the counter.  There is a motion sensor connected to the lights that detects us moving into the kitchen from any side and turns on the lights.  Early every morning when I walk to the place of coffee (elixir of life) the gift Ken installed is a blessing.  My choice is to enjoy the light; I cannot do that without remembering the hands that gave that gift.  (Or the old guy attached to those hands that climbed around in our attic to do the wiring right).

When Moses spoke to Israel, he reminded them of the gift of God’s commandments and how they were to learn them and also live them.  Any nation blessed like Israel or America ought to remember to pass that along to the next generation, to fear the God who made them. 

For You Today

The counsel of Moses to Israel was to not forget where their greatness originated.  They were to live-in and enjoy the land they possessed; just not ever lose sight of the fact that it was a gift and calling – a responsibility to share and spread the light.  And when God calls a nation or a person, God puts greatness and goodness in their DNA.  When nations or persons trample either they soil the DNA of God’s greatness and goodness. 

Perhaps the message of the next presidential election season should be slightly altered to Make America Great (and GODLY) again!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

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[1] Title Image:   Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post on this Deuteronomy 4:9-10 see NEVER FORGET

Arise

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Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Ah, I hear my lover coming!  He is leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.  My lover is like a swift gazelle or a young stag.  Look, there he is behind the wall, looking through the window, peering into the room.  My lover said to me, “Rise up, my darling!  Come away with me, my fair one!  Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone.  The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air.  The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming.  Rise up, my darling!  Come away with me, my fair one!”  Song of Solomon 2:8-13^(NLT)

The Song of Songs is a storyteller’s ripe field.  You can just see the flowers blooming and sense that love is in the air!  Can’t you just hear Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music that fills the hills with joy and daffodils?  Young lovers everywhere!

Solomon is very specific to name this season as late March/early April, and since the mating season of gazelles is closer to November, there is much more here than poetic allusion to the primal mating characteristics of deer.  This is spring, and it is the paschal season of Passover and resurrection!

The lover is calling to his bride, “Arise, my love”.  The word has a lot of uses in Hebrew.  Some authors[ii] suggest it is the awakening call of one who has been sleeping, or in a stupor.  Solomon may have written this beautiful love call as an ode to his bride, but, for those of us who celebrate the resurrection of Christ 3,000 years after Solomon lived, there is an unmistakable connection with the one who calls us to stand-up out of our death stupor and be joined to the One who calls and enlivens us.

This is resurrection call! 

When the lover calls His bride, it is to come away with him.  This is the unmistakable call of God drawing time, space and eternity together, as He draws his beloved church into the blessed paradise Jesus promised the thief who was crucified next to him. 

Paul carried this promise in his heart and shared it with the Thessalonian church:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.  First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.  Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  Then we will be with the Lord forever.  So encourage each other with these words.  1 Thessalonians 4:16-18^(NLT)

Did you hear that as in a stupor?  Or did you hear it afresh and anew?  Voice of the archangel; trumpet call of God; caught up; these are the words of an invitation as the bridegroom calls out his bride. 

This is our future, our destiny.  This is not mating season; this is marriage calling!

For You Today

Whether a Christian lies awaiting the call in the grave, or is still in the body when it happens, there is going to be a time when the bridegroom calls:

Arise, my love…the grave no longer has a hold on you[iii]

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

NOTES

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[i] Title Image: Pixabay.com

[ii] Barnes, Keil & Dellitsch, among others.

[iii] ^©Newsong

Yield - Part 2

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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

VIDEO

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.  Proverbs 3:5-6^(NLT) 

Yesterday we began this short series on Yielding to God, and the differences we can expect when we choose to bow the knee in prayer…to yield to God’s Lordship. 

The idea of trusting the LORD with all your heart, even past the limit of your own ability to reason things out, leads us to what you’re saying with the first phrase that comes out of your mouth when you bow in prayer:

You’re yielding to follow anywhere God leads

Abram (who would later become Abraham, father to us in the faith) never saw it coming.  He took a walk one day and God spoke to his heart:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation.  I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.  All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”  So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.  Genesis 12:1-4^(NLT)

Did you get that?  God spoke to a 75 year-old man who had lived all that time in one spot, and told him to get up, leave everything except one nephew, and take those aching bones on a journey to….well….somewhere out there!  And the man did it!

There are many kinds of calls – letting go of things, places, people, ideas – many of them familiar and comforting – some in which we frame the very identity of our lives.  In the case of Abram – it was to physically leave it all behind.

Sometimes God leads people to make major changes, and we cannot really foresee where the journey will take us.  Although the short beginning to Abram’s adventure makes it seem as if it all happened in one day, real time, I suspect there might have been a little (or a lot) of time in-between God’s call and Abram’s leaving Haran to follow that faceless God out into the dessert.  That’s not something you decide lightly!  Abram probably wrestled with this whole thing for a while…maybe some months, even years!

I say this because you cannot read this story and not remember your own call experience.  Mine was a growing (and rather uncomfortable, unnerving) sense of dissatisfaction with how little it actually cost me to serve God.

Doesn’t make sense, right? 

Well, it does when you begin to recognize the cost to God for the overwhelming gift of grace to forgive my sins, which is what happened to me.  How could I not give everything to Him, when God had held nothing back for me?  When I finally yielded to the call, God put it in our hearts to follow Him anywhere.  For our family, it meant what it meant to Abram – leaving the familiar place and life we’d known to follow him into the unknown! 

So scary! 

And somehow, once the decision was made to yield, it was so much more comforting than scary to place yourself totally in the hands of One who promised to never leave nor forsake you as He leads you into that unknown.

And that’s the rub…the comfort of His care only comes after you make the first step in His direction; only after you yield!

For You Today

Tomorrow we’ll talk about a few more yield-points in our lives. 

But, for right now, ask yourself the question – what yield has God asked of me…and am I still holding on when I should’ve let go?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  By Yield_sign.svg: derivative work: Fry1989 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons