Inconvenient Accountability

 

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Zechariah 1:1-6

In November of the second year of King Darius’s reign, the Lord gave this message to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah and grandson of Iddo:  “I, the Lord, was very angry with your ancestors.  Therefore, say to the people, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:  Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.’  Don’t be like your ancestors who would not listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets said to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:  Turn from your evil ways, and stop all your evil practices.’  “Where are your ancestors now?  They and the prophets are long dead.  But everything I said through my servants the prophets happened to your ancestors, just as I said.  As a result, they repented and said, ‘We have received what we deserved from the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  He has done what he said he would do.’”

source: Wikimedia

The 2006 documentary film by Davis Guggenheim entitled An Inconvenient Truth features the thoughts of former Vice President Al Gore on accountability for our actions towards global ecology (namely, global warming).  It is controversial, and served as a political hot potato between left and right sides of the aisle.  If Mr. Gore is right, we don’t have long to dwell on this planet unless we change our ways substantially…even radically.  If he is wrong, and it is simply the cyclical rhythm of the earth’s want of clearing out its lungs (a global cough, so to speak), we’ll know in a hundred (or a thousand) years.

Now, that said, this devotional thought is not about politics or global warming.  It is about a different kind of accountablity, much more cosmic and critical in nature, and much more inconvenient than global warming; this is about the judgment of God, and our incontrovertible collision course with accountability.

In speaking through the prophet, Zechariah, God reminded the people of Israel of the folly of their ancestors, who were warned about judgment coming, but blew it off as just opinions of preachers.  But Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian empire, and 50 years later God speaks to the remnant still in captivity.  The message is to look to how foolish it was to ignore God, and the key verse tells us of God’s ever-present invitation:

Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.’  Don’t be like your ancestors who would not listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets said to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:  Turn from your evil ways, and stop all your evil practices.’  Zechariah 1:3-4

Zechariah’s voice is merely a simple repetition of what the people already knew (as is much preaching in any age…we know it, we simply fail to live it, and must be reminded constantly).  Consider what was said 500 years before when God’s Word was “rediscovered”:

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.  2 Chronicles 7:14

This collision course with accountability is a theme which threads its way through all of Scripture.  It is God’s repetitive message to we human toddlers who have trouble getting it, that we have a responsibility to pay attention, learn, and, most importantly,  ACT with reverence towards God, LIVING a lifestyle of worshipping God, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  To do otherwise invites whatever Babylonian forces of today to invade and clean our clocks.  The truth is inconvenient here, but, if God did it back then, our flank is exposed here and now.  It would behoove this, or any, nation to behave, turning to God before it’s too late.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, our ways are indeed wicked, and we must turn.  We believe; help us fight off unbelief.  Our land of joy, peace, and righteousness has become a stinkhole of anger, violence, and willful unrighteousness.  Have mercy on us; help us to turn and be restored.  In the name of Christ Jesus, let it be so.

For You Today

Nobody can repent for his neighbor, father, aunt, uncle, cousin, child, or grandkids.  But we can, and must, start with personal remorse for our sins, and repent from living in those sins.  Remember, God’s not interested in how good you are compared to your neighbor, or that other guy at work; He’s only interested in how close you are to Him! 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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

For other posts on God’s Judgment see Judgment Day and The Lord is King

Consider the Rock

 

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Isaiah 51:1-3

“Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance—all who seek the Lord!  Consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were mined.  Yes, think about Abraham, your ancestor, and Sarah, who gave birth to your nation.  Abraham was only one man when I called him.  But when I blessed him, he became a great nation.”  The Lord will comfort Israel again and have pity on her ruins.  Her desert will blossom like Eden, her barren wilderness like the garden of the Lord.  Joy and gladness will be found there.  Songs of thanksgiving will fill the air.

Remembering from whence we came is, at once, the greatest blessing and bane humans enjoy and endure.  When we recall our sinfulness, willful and self-destructive, we must endure its shame.  When we recall our humble entrance into this world, small, and totally dependant on the kindness of our parents, we gain the perspective of dust; lowly we began, and we are bound for it again.

God points out to the enslaved nation of Israel, losers in war and captives again, that both their sin and their Savior are attached together.  The God who used Israel’s enemy to awaken them to their sinful ways would also be their Savior, bringing greatness out of brokenness, once again.

This is a thought that occupies my mind and soul these days.  And not just for America; we are only a few days away from the July 4^th anniversary of our nation’s birthday, but this is not patriotic nationalism.  This is about humanity’s survival.

God’s promises are at least two things:

          1.     They are certain…what God promises, God brings to pass

          2.     They are misunderstood, and misrepresented…just turn on the TV and see the commercials during religious programming. 

Isaiah says God promises joy that will replace the ruins of a disgraced superpower.  In so-doing the prophet invites the beleagured nation to consider the rock from which they were cut; he holds up their humble beginnings for examination. 

It was to an old couples’ childless vacuum God promised an heir, the firstborn of a nation, to be numbered as the grains of sand on the beaches.  To Sarah, 90 years old, and her 100 year old husband, Abraham, there was given a birth, and beginning of fulfillment.  What was once the emptiness of no evidence of God’s promised blessing, is now breathing, cooing, nursing, and filling diapers in a geriatric couple’s tent.  Amazement, laughter, and joy have replaced sad resignation.  Singing and dancing are the new order of the day.  Humble beginnings in Abraham’s tent now shows the flower of spring in the garden of hope.

But, it also began a rough ride. 

Abraham’s family has known what every other family on earth has experienced, treachery, jealousy, hypocrisy, poverty, oppression, tears, joy, singing, parched times, and good.  And, eventually, the fruit of God’s promise came to a cradle in Bethlehem, born a child with no earthly father, but nonetheless a part of Abraham’s lineage.  This is the centerpiece of God’s creation, understood from before the foundation of the universe, that the promise of restoration is carved from the bedrock of Yahweh’s strength.

And, here we are, muddled in such deep and abstruse mysteries, such as whether or not to wear a face mask in WalMart.  And we have deep pain over the shortage of toilet paper.  And on, and on, ad nauseum.  We are drowning in the proverbial puddle of plague-concern at the moment, with all sense of normalcy on-hold, except for the incessant droning of the news channels counting the dead. 

All this…and it is substantial…is momentary.  God is forever; and we have been mined from His quarry, not some primordial pond of protoezoa.  We are made in His image, and, blurred and muddied as that image is in 2020, we remain the apple of His eye[1], His crown of creation[2], and as much as we might feel as depressed and forgotten as Abraham and Sarah, the promises of God never fail.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we are thankful that the promise of Your word will never return to You unaccomplished.  What You set out to do is already done.  Prime our faith to receive this truth, we pray, in the name of Your holy child, Jesus.

For You Today

If the “virus culture” of this moment has you a little (or a lot) depressed or bewildered, don’t let the mud puddle claim another victim; just lift your head to look at the rock from which you were cut!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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

For other posts on God’s Promises see After the Storm – Part 2 and Why God Got Some Ink

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[1] Zechariah 2:8

[2] Genesis 1:28

When the Mighty Fall

 

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

1 Kings 21:17-29

But the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria.  He will be at Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, claiming it for himself.  Give him this message:  ‘This is what the Lord says:  Wasn’t it enough that you killed Naboth?  Must you rob him, too?  Because you have done this, dogs will lick your blood at the very place where they licked the blood of Naboth!’”  “So, my enemy, you have found me!” Ahab exclaimed to Elijah.  “Yes,” Elijah answered, “I have come because you have sold yourself to what is evil in the Lord’s sight.  So now the Lord says, ‘I will bring disaster on you and consume you.  I will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel!  I am going to destroy your family as I did the family of Jeroboam son of Nebat and the family of Baasha son of Ahijah, for you have made me very angry and have led Israel into sin.’  “And regarding Jezebel, the Lord says, ‘Dogs will eat Jezebel’s body at the plot of land in Jezreel.’  “The members of Ahab’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures.”  (No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab did under the influence of his wife Jezebel.  His worst outrage was worshiping idols just as the Amorites had done—the people whom the Lord had driven out from the land ahead of the Israelites.)  But when Ahab heard this message, he tore his clothing, dressed in burlap, and fasted. He even slept in burlap and went about in deep mourning.  Then another message from the Lord came to Elijah:  “Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me?  Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime.  It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty.”

Ahab was King of Israel.  By definition that means he was God’s servant, charged with the responsibility to make certain God’s people were turned to God, rather than evil.  Ahab failed miserably, because he chose to use his position of power to get what he wanted, rather than do what God required.  Some things never change!

By contrast, Elijah, God’s faithful servant, was always in some kind of hot water with the powers that be.  That describes the life of anyone who will speak for God.  As a pastor, I learned early-on that there are two parts to the job description:

               ·       Comfort the afflicted, and…

               ·       Afflict the comfortable.

Ahab fell in the later category, and it was Elijah’s task to deliver the uncomfortable truth about the king’s sin.  That part of the job never includes a pleasant afternoon tea time.  I learned that thirty years ago; it was homecoming Sunday, and the church was full. The smell of fried chicken and homemade delights filled the air.  But my thoughts on what God had spoken to my heart about the state of a church that was long past its glory days led me to preach a sermon on how serving self leads to destruction.  It included recounting how the church dies when it is more in love with what the church has done in its history, rather than putting on the work gloves and serving God in the here and now.  After the service, I was greeting the crowd at the door, and one older woman approached me with a deeply furrowed brow.  She growled:  Those people didn’t need to hear all that disturbing stuff; a preacher ought to make a homecoming crowd feel good about how we used to do stuff.  With that, she huffed and stormed off.  Well…shut my mouth! 

It’s an odd thing the way God chooses preachers, particularly in my case.  I was like Moses at the burning bush, trying to get God to send anyone but me.  And this woman was proof that it was going to be a long haul – if I lived through the confrontation God’s Word always precipitates. 

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we’re more apt, especially when we get older and weaker, to wear the medals of what we have done for You, than to hear the marching orders.  We want ease rather than the confrontation spiritual warfare requires.  Forgive our selfishness, and renew us for serving you today.  Help us hear Elijah, and refuse the temptation to be Ahab.

For You Today

A positive thought to end today’s devotion is Ahab’s response to Elijah’s message.  To his credit, Ahab went into repentance mode, showing Godly sorrow over his sin.  And, God saw it, and God responded.  As evil as he’d been, Ahab found out his life’s sins were not unforgivable.  And THAT is the very definition of Good News!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Welcome Collection Gallery (via Wikimedia Commons)

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

Empty Spaces That Tell a Story

 

Friday, June 19, 2020

Acts 5:17-26

The high priest and his officials, who were Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.  They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.  But an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out.  Then he told them, “Go to the Temple and give the people this message of life!”  So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching.  When the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council—the full assembly of the elders of Israel.  Then they sent for the apostles to be brought from the jail for trial.  But when the Temple guards went to the jail, the men were gone.  So they returned to the council and reported,  “The jail was securely locked, with the guards standing outside, but when we opened the gates, no one was there!”  When the captain of the Temple guard and the leading priests heard this, they were perplexed, wondering where it would all end.  Then someone arrived with startling news:  “The men you put in jail are standing in the Temple, teaching the people!”  The captain went with his Temple guards and arrested the apostles, but without violence, for they were afraid the people would stone them.

It’s not a difficult thing to picture the look of surprise on the faces of the Temple guards when they arrived at the empty jail cell, and imagine the thoughts that flashed through their minds.

          ·       Uh….they were there…the cell’s still locked…what the….?

          ·       I’m gonna get fired for this…

          ·       What are these guys, magicians?  Ghosts?

          ·       Am I going nuts?

We can also hear the laughter of Heaven, as all the angels are gathered around God’s 148” flat screen monitor, watching it all unfold.  I can imagine the email they’d all gotten the night before…Hey, angels, you don’t wanna miss this; we’re gonna pull a spoof on the Romans.  Watch it live, tomorrow morning…what a hoot.

Now, those are always my first thoughts reading this passage.  And, if you’re entertained by the good guys making a miraculous escape, you are also pleased to read this passage.  But, it’s easy to miss the message about what a miracle means.  Especially when God plays David Copperfield and makes an apostle disappear – poof!  We wonder, how’d he do that?  Where’d they go?

The real story is not the “how” but the “why”.  And then the “what”.  How God does stuff is always God’s business.  Answering the why and what are our task in learning to stay connected with God’s plans for bringing praise and glory to Jesus.

So, let’s consider the why of this miracle – just like the grave couldn’t hold Jesus, when God has something He wants accomplished, titanium bars, security systems constructed by CPI or Brinks, mean nothing.  God will release anyone He wishes, and imprison those who get in the way of God’s brand of justice.

The real key to understanding what happened here is the what.  And that is where discipleship rubber meets the cultural road.  Cutting to the chase, simply, God wanted to elevate the game of the disciples’ impact on the life of people worshipping at the Temple.  He wanted Peter and the others to have a platform. 

But there’s a secondary understanding we don’t want to miss about miracles.  If you watch any religious TV broadcasting, miracles are a hot ticket.  And, although God usually gets the credit, the effect is much more about our comfort.  The  “prayer” that got through and brought this great big blessing is the preacher’s hook of promise.  And he uses that lure to draw in more donations.  The bait on the hook is the idea that if you’ll just believe, God will give you what you want. 

But, that is just plain manipulative, both from the standpoint of the “evangelist” who is dangling anything that might stir up your greed to have something, and his characterization of a God who can be manipulated by humans with the right kind of handling.  In short, the evangelist’s message is you too, can be David Copperfield!

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we are sometimes stunned by our carnal appetites and the lengths to which we can sink to satisfy all our wants.  Help us to remember what our Lord taught, that to truly follow Him, our understanding of miracles has to be praise that Your will is being carried out, and our part is to deny self in favor of picking up a cross.

For You Today

I call it the prayer of the pink Cadillac, this tendency to believe in miracles so you can hold onto the hope of being rich in this life.  The problem with that pink luxury car prayer is it makes you poor in eternity.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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

For other posts on Psalm 86 see Putting the Gospel in Prison and Signs, Wonders, and Shadows