God's Delight in Us

 

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"The Lord your God is in your midst, a Warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with joy; He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy" (Zephaniah 3:17 AMP 2015).

"The steps of a [good and righteous] man are directed and established by the Lord, and He delights in his way [and blesses his path]" (Psalm 37:23 AMP 2015).

"The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love" (Psalm 147:11 NIV).

"For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation" (Psalm 149:4 NIV).

"...the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:4b-5 NIV).

"...You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy" (Micah 7:18b NIV).

When we are His people, humble and righteous in Christ, fearing Him and hoping in Him, God delights in us. He pours it over us unsparingly, to overflowing; He gives us His best because we are worth it to Him. And when we will delight ourselves in Him--with extravagant, scrumptious delight--he will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4).

Jesus and Psychology

 

Think about the religious people you've known in your life. Even those who considered themselves Christians. Even the actual Christians. If your experience was anything like mine, you knew a lot of people who believed they had to do good to gain heaven. Who believed that when they died, God would weigh their deeds in some scale, and if the good outweighed the bad St. Peter would open the gates, and if the bad outweighed the good, they'd be sentenced to the fire. And most of them had no inkling what their fate would be. 

Does that mess with your head, or what?

How do people handle life in the face of this? Some walk away, deciding to believe none of it--which means illogically believing their decision makes it true. This is the equivalent of plugging their ears and singing, "Nananana." Others shrug and figure the scale will tip in their favor because they're good people. But they can't be sure, so they don't think about it much. Still others will decide that whatever "better place" comes next, we all go there and pretty much deserve to. Again, betting their life that this arbitrary belief is true. And then there are those who knock themselves out doing good deeds, because they want to please and appease a God who's looking for reason to club them over the head (this angry God who needs to be placated is probably the attitude I most encountered in childhood). 

And what does all this do to us? It traps us in worry, striving, and uncertainty. Or it causes otherwise logical people to plug their ears and sing "Nananana" concerning their eternal destiny. Or to adopt beliefs that have no basis--which we try not to do in the rest of life--because they soothe. (Ironically, this is often what unbelievers accuse us of doing.) Will those who are working for the reward be good enough for it? Even if they are, can they keep it up? Will they fall into a cycle of feeling good about themselves and then horrible about themselves? Does any of this sound like decent mental or spiritual health?

The fact that God accepts us in Jesus Christ and therefore we do good works out of joy and security is the exact inverse. We serve Him because He loves us, not to make Him love us. Security in Christ is the key to freedom from the angst caused by religion as performance. For example, we don't use our hobbies, talents, and occupations to earn points, but to serve others. We don't go to church to be seen, but to gather. We don't do good to our neighbor because it will place a chit on the "good" side of our scale, but to genuinely help in Jesus' name--in other words, really loving our neighbor. We don't chase a full slate of earthly activities to feel good about ourselves or be seen as do-gooders, but as gifts from God that we can share. And we do this from a position of rest in the finished work of Christ. Life without Him is simply nerve-wracking.

Doesn't faith in God, then, shift human psychology? I think it does. My prayer is that some of the mental health crises in our world can be improved or avoided simply by more people coming to Jesus Christ. I believe it would make a bigger difference than we dare hope. 

Of Flipping Through the Bible and Psalm 91

 

When my husband and I were new Christians, we joined a home fellowship that, unbeknownst to us, was a wee bit radical in certain ways. The wonderful thing about this group, besides the introduction to other believers, was its central focus: "We don't care what a denomination teaches if it doesn't match Scripture. We want to know what the Bible says!" Getting thrown in the deep end, as far as the Bible was concerned, was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Some of the people, some of the time, practiced what they called "breaking Scripture." If they had a question, faced a decision, etc., they opened the Bible at random and took advice from whatever passage their finger landed on. Of course, the temptation to misuse this didn't take long to rear its head, and soon the exercise was jokingly called "Bible roulette." 

And of course, I tried it. Once in a while? Used judiciously? Marvelously apropos answers came forth, words that made my breath catch with their relevance to my need. Too often? Used routinely? The passages "received" bore less and less relation to my concern, and I understood that these attempts to hear from God were trying to shortcut the building of relationship. God can and sometimes will speak this way, but He doesn't use formulas and the Bible is not a crystal ball. 

I do still open the Bible at random, though. Not because I'm looking for a sign to help me choose between Fork A or Fork B on the road of life, but maybe because I want to read the word but I'm not sure exactly where. Or because I just want to dive in somewhere. Or because I want to see where God will draw my attention. I opened the Bible at random just now, and--kind of tied in with all the foregoing--landed on a chapter I prayed through with someone just yesterday. When God repeats Himself, I have learned to pay attention. 

I'm speaking of Psalm 91, which I think of as the protection psalm. I've known people who prayed this for their soldiers every day and they returned from tours of duty unharmed. One man in the aforementioned home group claimed it as his insurance policy--seriously--in lieu of health insurance (and perhaps other kinds; I never asked) for his family. Granted, this was back in the days before "in-network" and "out-of-network" and before every single dealing with a doctor was cost-prohibitive. But you know what? Nothing ever happened to them, either. And they had eight kids.

Just what is the power of faith in His word, if we will exercise it?

Father, I pray the promises of Psalm 91 over all who read these words. May we dwell in Your shelter and rest in Your shadow, simply for the joy of living there and not only to gain the other benefits. But we do ask Your promises to apply to us: safety from the fowler's snare, pestilence, terror, attack, and destruction. Cover us, and let Your faithfulness be our shield. Let Your protections extend to our families--all who live in or are from "our tent." Thank You that Your angels protect us--even us--when we aren't aware of it. Thank You for victory over the lions and cobras of life, and help us choose to overcome them when they threaten and not give in to them. We are those who love You, know Your name, trust in You, and call upon You, and we receive Your rescue, Your answers, Your presence, Your honor--honor, Lord, for us!--Your length of life, and all the good things You have for us who stay the course on the narrow road to life. We set our love on You, Lord, as verse 14 says, the Hebrew indicating a type of love that "hugs tightly." We hug You tightly, knowing that since we have a Savior who can make it through a storm at sea sleeping on a cushion, we are never outside Your care when we are in Your presence. Amen.

Jesus

Isn't it just amazing that life can be summed up in one word: Jesus. And not just summed up, but contained. 

"For He has rescued us and has drawn us to Himself from the dominion of darkness, and has transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption [because of His sacrifice, resulting in] the forgiveness of our sins [and the cancellation of sins' penalty]. He is the exact living image [the essential manifestation] of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible], the firstborn [the preeminent one, the sovereign, and the originator] of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, [things] visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things were created and exist through Him [that is, by His activity] and for Him. And He Himself existed and is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. [His is the controlling, cohesive force of the universe.] He is also the head [the life-source and leader] of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will occupy the first place [He will stand supreme and be preeminent] in everything. For it pleased the Father for all the fullness of deity--the sum total of His essence, all His perfection, powers, and attributes] to dwell [permanently] in Him (the Son), and through [the intervention of] the Son to reconcile all things to Himself, making peace [with believers] through the blood of His cross; through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were at one time estranged and alienated and hostile-minded [toward Him], participating in evil things, yet Christ has now reconciled you [to God] in His physical body through death, in order to present you before the Father holy and blameless and beyond reproach." 

(Colossians 1:13-22, AMP 2015)

In Jesus, all things hold together. 

If a coin appears in a fish's mouth because He said it would, if a crowd can be fed on five loaves and two fish, if a storm swamps our boat yet Jesus can sleep--what need can't He supply? What doesn't owe its existence to Him? Worry, where is your sting?

Jesus. The Way, the Truth, the Life. The Word. The Blood. The Resurrection. The Ascension. 

Jesus. 

Thank You, Father, for blessing us with the name of Jesus. 

God's Yes and God's No

I was reading in Isaiah and came across a place where I had written NO! in the margin. It was at Isaiah 39:2, where King Hezekiah had shown his entire treasure house to envoys from Babylon. "No, Hezekiah," I had wanted to shout--and laughed, because I now wanted to shout it again. "Do not show everything you've got. Do not cast your pearls before pigs (Matthew 7:6). Do not spread your nets in view of all the birds" (Proverbs 1:17). In short, some things are only between you and God (Matthew 6; Luke 2:19; Romans 14: 22; Proverbs 2:11, 11:13, 17:27). 

Hezekiah was an interesting king, and not necessarily one we think a lot about. He was one of the most upstanding kings of Judah during the time of the divided kingdom. His story is told in 2 Kings 18-20, 2 Chronicles 29-32, and Isaiah 37-39. Perhaps ironically, he successfully repelled a threat from Assyria (the nation that had already conquered and exiled Israel) while inviting Babylon (the nation that would later conquer and exile Judah) into the henhouse, so to speak. Now hindsight is 20/20, so this may be understandable on that basis, but there's another, much bigger difference.  

Hezekiah avoided capture by Assyria mainly by appealing to God. His prayer in the temple (Isaiah 37:14-20) not only asked God's help, but acknowledged that the threat was against God Himself, and concluded with a plea to save the nation so that the whole earth might know He was God. This wasn't just "get us out of this jam so we'll be okay." It was "an attack on Your people is an attack on You, and it questions Your power and even Your existence, so for Your own glory please reveal Who You are." God answered through a prophecy by Isaiah, in essence saying to the king of Assyria that he'd been a tool in God's hand all along and he would not even enter the city. This was followed by an angel of the Lord killing 185,000 soldiers in their camp. In other words, Judah didn't even have to go to war.

By contrast, the king of Babylon sent messengers and presents to Judah. Perhaps Hezekiah did what many of us do: seek God when there's a direct threat, but not when something supposedly good happens, as if we need God only in crisis. Pride, too, was operating. "Look at all my stuff!" Hezekiah was saying, a stark difference from his previous "Look at our God!" mindset. Isaiah then told him a time would be coming when all of that and more, plus the people, would be captured and carried off to Babylon. Hezekiah's indiscretion wasn't the sole cause of the exile, because Judah committed plenty of outright evil (as other kings including his own son would). But this is where God's pronouncement was made. This is where the exile became a sure thing. And then Hezekiah put the cherry on top: He didn't say a word about God's reputation in the earth this time, but agreed that God's judgment was good because it wouldn't happen in his lifetime. "That'll be my kid's problem," was his attitude. Yes, Hezekiah, and your kid is evil. 

It's very interesting what the Scripture records between these two encounters with Assyria and Babylon. Hezekiah had gotten fatally ill; God told him he would die. He prayed to be spared and God added fifteen years to his life. Had God taken him when He originally planned, would the whole Judah/Babylon conquest and exile have happened? Probably; there were other reasons for it. But Hezekiah lived to play a part in bringing it about and received God's edict concerning it. Besides the pitfalls of pride and not seeking God in everything, we have to ponder that it's important to surrender to God's will in situations we don't have full insight to understand. Sometimes we pray and God gives us our way, even when it's not His best (Israel wanting a king like all the other nations, for example). The most important lesson might be to receive His "no" answers with full trust, and His "yes" answers with full humility. 

Year One is Done, or Prayer for a Bible Student

Finals are done, the year went faster than fast, and I am halfway to a bachelor's in biblical studies. The path ahead, appearing before me as I step carefully and bend the brush aside, is one I never expected to walk. And it's better than the one I once wanted. So much better. 

Father, help me concentrate on not just the written word, but the Word--Jesus. Help me go far beyond head knowledge of a topic, so I can see and hear You, Your imprint, Your handprint, Your whisper, Your intentions, on every page. In the books of the Bible we've already covered and the books still to come, show me every hint of Jesus that I may have missed before. Help me resist the temptation to consider a passage read, a paper written, or a blog post composed, "my time with you," so that I am still prioritizing getting alone with You without agenda--and without concern for a grade. Help me see the jots and tittles and the grand narrative and never lose sight of either. Jesus, in You all things consist, and in You all things hold together. Thank You for the blood, the Name, the book, the victory. Amen.  

Do Nothing for Show, and Other Matthew 5-7 Thoughts

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A month or so ago I posted on Jesus' final week--what He chose to say and do during that week. It's just as instructive, I think, to look at what He said and did in His first lengthy teaching. I'm referring to the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5-7. What are its main takeaways? I think these:

• Thoughts are as powerful as deeds
• Intentions matter hugely
• Do nothing for show
• Avoid sin at all costs
• Be the salt and light of the world
• Whatever good you might see done by the world, you're called to more and better
• Persist in prayer
• Do as you would be done by
• Beware false teachers

To me, the first four are the most striking. "If you thought it, you did it." Jesus was speaking to people who had spent their lives watching the Pharisees' meticulous and too-often hypocritical obedience to the letter of the law. "Meticulous" wasn't wrong, but if we aren't careful people can catch the idea that outward observance and compliance are enough--or the only important thing. Jesus meant to disabuse them of this notion; He was interested in the integrity of the whole individual. A thousand years earlier, David had realized that God desired truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6). Almost every deed first starts with a conscious thought. I've found that if I keep the Scriptural reminder to bring every thought captive to Christ, my thought life improves noticeably. I pray this before bed and have even experienced changes in the things I dream.

Thoughts lead naturally to intentions. There's a claim running through our culture today that intentions do not matter. I will certainly agree that protesting, "But I meant well!" when we have caused offense isn't good enough. Good intentions don't mean we're excused from taking responsibility for our careless behavior; that is centering ourselves at the expense of the person we hurt. Saying those good intentions are worthless, though, is running off the road into the opposite ditch, nor does it make sense, nor is it true. Should we prefer ill intentions? Didn't we just say that the quality of our thoughts usually determines the quality of our deeds? The most important point: the claim that intentions don't matter runs contrary to Jesus' teaching. Intentions matter hugely.

"Do nothing for show" is possibly better rendered "Do nothing just for show." There is nothing wrong with beautiful appearances (in fact, I believe peacocks were created expressly to display the beauty of God's design). Excellence in all things, inner and outer, honors Him, but it's wrong to (a) be prideful or puffed up about appearances, and/or (b) slap them onto the surface of a rotten interior so things look better than they are and expect credit for that. The Lord desires purity, not in the sense of some sort of prissy behavior, but in the sense of lack of mixture or compromise. Our aim is to be Godly through and through.  

Avoid sin at all costs. Of course Jesus doesn't mean to literally cut off our hand or pluck out our eye, but the illustration is no less powerful for that realization. Whatever is causing us to sin, we should spare no cost in forsaking that thing; eternally, even our bodies are not worth our souls. The wages of sin really are death. The unsaved person becomes more entrenched in his path to destruction the more he sins, and the saved person becomes entangled again and is often worse off than before, at the very least losing reward he could have gained (1 Corinthians 3), and making it less likely each time that he will repent and turn back. That pet sin we keep sent Jesus to the cross. What we need to do, He says, is rip, cast, thrust, erase, and "cross" it out of our lives. Habitual sinners deceive themselves if they believe they have seen or known Jesus (1 John 3:6).

In all things, may we attend to the inside as much as the outside. Let what we show to others on the outside be the real deal.  

Prayer for May

Father, the promises of nature are like human promises: fairly certain, well-intentioned, definitely goals, but they are not rock solid, infallible, without a doubt. Will apples bud here? Very likely. Apple blossoms are the "promise" of apples. Will they get to fully ripen, and will we get to eat them? Not a sure thing at all. Last year, as You know, we went zero for fifteen.

The only rock-solid, infallible, without-a-doubt promises are Yours. Help us not brush them off as too good to be true, but rather be receptive toward them. You are a sure thing; therefore so is every word You speak. All Your promises are to us Yes and Amen through Christ, the Yes being the guarantee and Amen the finality or "so be it." 

We ask You to help us experience Your promises by remembering Whom we believe, that You are able. Be with us wherever we go, uphold us with your righteous right hand, be our refuge and fortress. Supply our needs according to Your riches in glory, give us hope and a future, make our paths straight. Leave us your peace, give the weary and burdened rest, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness, may your mercies be new every morning, and let nothing separate us from the love of God. We look to You and seek Your face, Lord. Not the promise, but the Promise-Giver. Where there are conditions, help us meet them.  

Thank You for your unchanging nature--so different from the natural changes all around us--and that You cannot lie. In cases where we must wait for Your promises, help us wait patiently for fulfillment. We hold to Your promises by faith, believing they are ours because You said so. 

With You, there is no "too good to be true," no good > true, because Your truth and Your goodness are equally perfect and infinite. What a magnificent thought to meditate on. 

We praise You, love You, and rest in You. Amen.