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Trust And Obey

Acts 22-24

Today we read of Paul addressing the Jews in Jerusalem after they had started a riot over him and he was arrested by the Romans.  He almost got flogged.  The Jews hatched a plot to kill him.  It was in fact a conspiracy to ambush him as he was brought to the temple for further questioning by the Sanhedrin.  In order to avoid the ambush the Roman tribune sent Paul to the Roman governor in Caesarea in the middle of the night.

Why did God have Paul go to Jerusalem?  Why did God have Paul go through all of this?  The answer to these questions can be found in the final verses of today’s reading.

Acts 24:24-25

“After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus.  And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”

Why did God put Paul through all of the trouble and hardship?  He did so for the sake of the Gospel.  Paul was put in a position to share the Gospel with the Governor of the Holy Land.  He would later be sent to Rome to declare the Gospel in the capital of the ancient world.  He would die there; as would Peter.

Accepting Christ is not a ticket to the high life; it is a ticket to eternal life.  Along the way there will be troubles and tribulations.  For the one who has accepted Christ these trials are as nothing for they are momentary discomforts on the way to eternity.  Don’t believe me?  Check out what Paul said to the Philippians:

Philippians 3:8-11

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Following Christ costs the “rubbish” of life.  It is a good trade since you receive eternal riches in exchange.  I see those riches as these words spoken by Jesus when I see Him in heaven “Well done good and faithful servant”.  Are you prepared to go where God leads you?  Are you prepared to persevere through the troubles that will inevitably come as a result of following Him?  If you are faithful and obedient He will prepare you for both.  As the Good Book teaches – trust and obey!

Have an obedient day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Your Chains Are Gone

Ezekiel 28-31

I remember a Steven Curtis Chapman song of a few years ago entitled “Remember your chains”.  I’ll include the lyrics below but let me just say that the point of this song isn’t really that you should remember your chains as but that you should remember your chains are gone.

When you became a Christian, did you confess your sins?  You had been a slave to sin.  You had been held fast by its chains.  You could not in your own power escape its clutches or its consequences.  When you became a Christian, you confessed your sins before God, were truly sorry for your sin, and asked God to forgive you through the atoning sacrifice of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  From that moment on you never sinned again did you?  If you didn’t I’d like to meet you.  I have stumbled and fallen time and again since accepting Christ.  It hurts every time I sin.  It hurts a lot.  It is that pain that helps me to make the changes in my life necessary to conform to the character of Jesus Christ.

I’m afraid I am already digressing.  Let me get back on track here.  Christ paid an incredible price to free us from our sin.  We are free!  Sin has lost its grip.  So why do we continue to return to sin?  These questions came to mind because I read in today’s verses about the punishment God declared for Egypt.  You see, Israel was enslaved in Egypt just like you and I were enslaved by sin.  God kept His promise to Abraham and freed the Israelites from slavery and took them to the Promised Land.  All they needed to do to keep their freedom and their land was to trust and obey God.

They didn’t trust and obey God.  They were extremely disobedient as we have read over and over again in the verses of the Bible.  They also did not trust in God.  They turned again and again to Egypt to save them.  Isn’t that amazing?  Instead of turning to the One who set them free for help and salvation they turned to the one that had enslaved them.  Does that make any sense at all?  No?  Then why do you and I do exactly that?  Why is that we have been set free from the power of sin and yet we seem to return time and time again to the place of our slavery?

We have followed the arch of the Jewish people from day one of their choosing as God’s people.  They have consistently swung from obedience to disobedience over and over again.  Why is God showing this to us?  Yes, this is for the lost but it is also for you and me, God’s children.  We are like Israel.  We continually allow ourselves to depart from obedience and trust in God.  We continue to return to that from which we have escaped.

Now please don’t get me wrong.  If you have unrepentant sin in your life then you are not saved.  You are a slave to sin and dead.  If you confess your sins before God but then continue to do the same thing over and over again, at some point you need to stop and ask yourself if you are truly sincere in your desire to be free of sin.  If you were truly repentant to begin with then God has given you the power to stop sinning.  If you were insincere in your repentance then you are not saved.  We may be able to fool ourselves but God is not fooled.  He knows who you are.  He knows if you have truly repented of your sin.

If you have truly repented of your sin then keep your eyes upon Jesus; trust and obey Him and He will give you the power to remain victorious over sin.  If you have not truly repented of your sin then you need to stop and ask yourself what it is exactly you truly believe.  Do you want to live in Egypt or the Promised Land?  You have to decide to leave sin behind.  You must make a firm commitment to leaving sin behind.  You cannot be free if you refuse to leave your chains.  Repentance is this commitment to change; to leave sin behind.  Once you do that Christ will set you free and He is sufficient to provide the power you need to remain free.  Always remember whose you are and that you are truly free.  Remember your chains are gone.

REMEMBER YOUR CHAINS ARE GONE

by Steven Curtis Chapman

I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking
As he stared out the window through the sky
It seemed he was taking his last look at freedom
From the hopeless, longing look in his eyes
There were chains on his hands and chains on his feet
And as I passes him by the thought came to me

Remember your chains
Remember the prison that once held you
Before the love of God broke through
Remember the place you were without grace
When you see where you are now
Remember your chains
And remember your chains are gone

There’s no one more thankful to sit at the table
Than the one who best remembers hunger’s pain
And no heart loves greater than the one that is able
To recall the time when all it knew was the shame
The wings of forgiveness can take us to heights never seen
But the wisest ones, they will never lose sight of where they were set free
Love set them free

So remember your chains
Remember the prison that once held you
Before the love of God broke through
Remember the place you were without grace
When you see where you are now
Remember your chains
And remember your chains are gone

And in the light of all that we’ve been forgiven of
We will find our hearts fuller and freer
To give and receive God’s love

So remember your chains
Remember the prison that once held you
Before the love of God broke through
Remember the place you were without grace
When you see where you are now
Remember your chains
Oh, remember your chains
When you remember your chains
Remember your chains are gone
Imagine what your life would be
If Jesus had not set you free
Remember your chains are gone
Remember the prison that once held you
Before the love of God broke through
Remember your chains
And remember your chains are gone

Have a chain-free day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Are you one of these? Your slip is showing Nancy! Man up!

No Namby-Pambies!

Jeremiah 37-40

Have you seen that GEICO commercial that has a drill sergeant as a psychotherapist?  They have this weepy guy lying on a sofa and the therapist is calling him names and yelling at him to man up.  At one point the therapist offers the crybaby a tissue and as he reaches for it the therapist throws the box at him.  I want to do that with Zedekiah.

As I went through today’s reading I noticed that Zedekiah is a bit of a sniveling little weasel.  Jeremiah kept warning Zedekiah and the people of Judah but they wouldn’t listen to him.  In fact, yesterday we read how Zedekiah cut off pieces of Jeremiah’s scroll as it was read and threw them into the fire until the entire scroll had been burned.  He didn’t want these dire warnings to spread.

Now we read that Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah to pray before God for him.  He didn’t want to listen to God, or the warnings coming from God through Jeremiah, but he still wanted God to save him from his predicament through the intercession of a man whom he has threatened.  Evidently he viewed God as many view Him today.  He viewed God as the great servant in the sky.  He wouldn’t obey, but he expected God to do his bidding.

Jeremiah was later wrongly accused of attempting to go over the enemy, the Chaldeans, and he was subsequently beaten and imprisoned by Zedekiah’s officials.  Now Zedekiah was really worried about his own neck.  You see Nebuchadnezzar had placed Zedekiah on the throne to be his puppet king after having taken the former king of Judah into exile in Babylon.  A guy like Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t like any king to stand up against him let alone a king he placed on a throne.  If Judah fell Zedekiah knew things were not going to go well for him personally.

Zedekiah didn’t demand that Jeremiah be released and he didn’t obey God’s instructions to surrender.  Instead he sent for Jeremiah secretly to ask him again if there was any message from the Lord.  He wasn’t going to change, but he wanted to hear from God again.  He didn’t like the message.  He wasn’t going to obey but he kept hoping against hope that he could continue in his disobedience and God would, for some reason, change His mind about the coming destruction.  He wouldn’t listen to any word from God except the word he wanted to here.  I’ve done that; how about you?

God isn’t the big servant in the sky.  He rules; you serve.  It is that simple.  If you don’t serve Him, life and eternity are going to hurt.  “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more.”  (For those of you who are wondering, that is an archaic Monte Python reference used completely out of context.) When will we get it?  We don’t give Him orders.  He does not serve us.  We obey or we get hurt.  Ignoring what God has to say, hoping for a different answer, is still going to hurt.  His will, will be done!

Later Jeremiah was cast into a cistern for his prophesying.  Even in this dark story of lost and evil men, one in Zedekiah’s court stands out as righteous.

Jeremiah 38:7-10

“When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate— Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king,  “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”  Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, “Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

Zedekiah was a real namby-pamby but at least this eunuch Ebed-melech was able to influence him for some good.  Ebed knew right and wrong and he stood up in the chamber of power to say what was right.  He was not disrespectful.  He was not indignant.  He was not loud.  He simply called evil “evil”.  He said that a thing was wrong and by so doing he saved an innocent man.

It is hard to stand up to power.  I suspect we will be called upon to do more and more of that here in America in the very near future.  We do not need to be angry, indignant, or hateful but we do need to simply call evil “evil”.  Both Jeremiah and Ebed stood up for righteousness and they both received their reward on earth and an even greater one in heaven.  Jeremiah had a very rough time obeying God.  I don’t mean he struggled to obey; I mean his obedience caused him hardship.  That should be considered the norm.  Our obedience will not come with gumdrops and lollipops.  Obedience costs something; it requires the denying of one’s self and the taking up of one’s cross.  Sometimes there are eventual rewards on earth; always there are rewards in heaven.  Look at Ebed:

Jeremiah 39:15-18

“The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guard:  “Go, and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.  For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.’”

I’m reminded of the twin sides of faith; trust and obey!  Don’t be a namby-pamby!

Have a manly day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Here Am I!  Send Me!

Isaiah 6-9

There is so much on which I would like to comment today but there just isn’t time.  I again found my heart soaring as I read passages about God’s Holiness, about Isaiah’s faithfulness, and about our coming Savior and King.  For example:

Isaiah 6:8

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

That one simple verse, composed of three simple sentences, is devastating to me.  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are asking “who will go for us?”  Isaiah said “Here am I! Send me.”  You do know that God asks that question every day don’t you?  Do you know He is looking right at you and me when He asks it? Did you notice that Isaiah did not ask “to do what?”  He didn’t ask if he could do it after he finished something else.  He didn’t barter about the particulars.  He simply said “Here am I!  Send me.”

Isaiah reminds me of Abram when God told him to rise and go to a place He would show him.  In other words “get up and get going; I’ll show you where you are going after you show me your faithfulness”.  Ah, the words “trust and obey” come crashing into my brain.  That is at the heart of faith.  This is not to suggest that the brain is turned off, but at the end of the day, when things just don’t make sense, when we don’t have all the answers we would like, we must simply trust and obey.

Isaiah 7:14

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Here it is!  People get ready!  Jesus is coming!  Soon we’ll be going home!!!  Here, 700 years before it came to pass Isaiah tells us that God is coming to earth in human form.  Immanuel means “God with us.”  He was that then and He is still that today.  Christ resides within me.  He is still Immanuel.

Why do we need Him?  Because we walk in the darkness of our own sin.

Isaiah 9:2

“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.”

I remember flipping channels the other day and I paused for a moment on one of the Harry Potter movies that have been playing a lot lately.  It was a scene where Harry and another fellow lay on the ground in a wood next to a small pond.  Dark, ghost like, shadows swirled overhead, coming closer and closer.  As they passed over the bodies they seem to suck the life from both individuals.  Just when it seemed like all was lost, a pinpoint of light from the other side of the pond burst forth.  It was an intense, brilliant light that quickly blossomed to the point of blotting out the screen.  The dark shadowy creatures were shattered in an instant.  Nothing could withstand the light.  That’s like us isn’t it?  Weren’t we being sucked dry of life by our sins?  Were not our sins draining us of life?  It was the light of Christ that broke through the darkness that surrounded us, obliterated our sins, and saved us from death; restoring our souls.

Isaiah 9:6-7

“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

Praise God!  Praise God!! Praise God!!!  May glory, and power, and honor, and praise be forever His!!!  He saved you.  He cleansed you and now He is asking whom shall I send?  I hope he hears you say “Here am I!  Send me!”

May you have an obedient day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!