Ezekiel 2
At a time when God was “giving up” His people into captivity, He wasn’t actually “giving up” on them at all. That’s one of the things I’ve discovered on this trip through the Bible: at a time when Israel seemed to be at its lowest possible point, God was communicating with them more thaan ever. Far from abandoning them, He was pursuing them all the more.
Jeremiah 36
When I was an impressionable teenager in the mid-90s, Doritos developed an advertising campaign for their tortilla chips that I still remember to this day. Maybe you remember it, too. The catchy slogan was, “Crunch all you want, we’ll make more.” I thought about that ad campaign as I read today’s chapter from Jeremiah. I could just hear God saying, “Burn all you want, I’ll make more.”
Jeremiah 35
I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: what you see in the Bible at any given time is highly dependent upon your immediate context—that is, your current life’s circumstances that provide the “frame of reference” by which you relate to the world around you. For example, if you are currently a student, you may notice things about education or wisdom. If you are currently a farmer, references to planting and harvest will likely pique your curiosity.
Jeremiah 4
In this chapter, God sends a clear invitation to Israel to repent from their idolatry and return to Him. He wants them to escape the impending invasion by the Babylonians, but it seems they want nothing to do with God and His plan to rescue them. At every turn, they continue to reject His protection.
Isaiah 65
Many years ago, the Christian band Newsboys released a song titled, “God is Not a Secret to Be Kept.” And there’s a lot of truth to that. Those of us who know and love God shouldn’t keep Him to ourselves, and frankly, it would be quite hard to do so. When you’ve found something awesome, you want to share it with others!
Isaiah 23
And now, to the laundry list of nations that will fall at the command of God, Isaiah adds Canaan—specifically the port cities of Tyre and Sidon: “Who was it that planned to bring all this on Tyre, that imperial city, whose merchant princes were the most honored men on earth? The Lord Almighty planned it. He planned it in order to put an end to their pride in what they had done and to humiliate their honored ones.” (vs 8-9)
Isaiah 19
This is one of those times when I’m sure that I don’t have adequate words to describe what is going through my head at the moment. The marvelous picture of God that presented itself to me at the end of this chapter of Isaiah is so immense in my mind that I’m sure I am incapable of relating the whole of it to anyone else.
Isaiah 18
There are some people who believe God plays favorites, that He keeps a list of who’s been naughty and nice and doles out blessings or curses accordingly. As evidence of this, some people point to the Israelites and claim that since God chose them to be “His” people, He plays favorites. This kind of thinking usually leads these folks to conclude that “they” are on God’s popular list and “others” (mainly those who do not think, talk, act, dress, or behave as they do) are not.
Isaiah 5
It is one of the paradoxes of life that, while God takes total responsibility for dealing with the sin problem, He is in no way responsible for sin. It entered His universe through the free choice of Lucifer, one of His beloved creatures. He is not to blame for sin. It has infected His creation through no fault of His own.
Ecclesiastes 2
I think Solomon must never have heard his father’s psalm that included this line: “You [God] make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Ps 16:11) Or maybe he did, and he decided to test-drive his father’s theory. We may have everlasting pleasures at God’s right hand, but can we find them without Him? That’s what Solomon attempted to do, and he wrote about it in this chapter.
Psalm 62
Ex-trem’ ist, n. One who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm.
We usually don’t think of extremism as a good thing. If you’ve done much paying attention to politics—especially American politics—you’ve probably heard the phrases far-left loons and right-wing nutjobs before. Those terms describe people who are thought of as extremists, as being out on the fringe of political thought.
Psalm 58
This psalm uses the imagery of the snake charmer: “Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies. Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears, that will not heed the tune of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be.” (vs 3-5)
Psalm 43
God has an agenda. It’s a simple one—to draw us ever closer to Him in relationship. I believe He does this even with His perfect creatures—those who have never fallen into sin. Why? Because no creature—even a perfect one—can ever fully understand the mind of the Creator. There will always be more to learn, more to be revealed. And so God is in the business of personal revelation.
Psalm 8
This has always been one of my most favorite psalms, especially this part: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens... When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (vs 1, 3-4)
Job 17
There is a very interesting verse in this chapter of Job. Look it up in several versions at home or online, and you’ll find a number of different renderings: "Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me?"(vs 3) In other words, Job is crying out to God and saying, "You will have to set things right, God. I don’t have what it takes."
Job 9
What may be said of Job may also be said of us: There is a lot about God that we know, but there is also a lot about God that we do not know. Job demonstrated that in this chapter. He said a lot of things about God that he knew from his experience with Him—He is the Creator; He is all-powerful; He is not mortal. But, as close as Job was with God, there were still some things he didn’t know about God. And those things made him uneasy.
Photo © Unsplash/Niko Manuelides
What does it matter
if the thief
kills your sheep
or it's found alive?
Why should
a sheep that has vanished
be worth
twice as much
as one that's been repoed?
Maybe it's all about
God getting justice—
not so much for the victim
as for the perp.
For to sneakily get rid
of the trace of your crime
suggests a hardness
not known to the
heart with red hands,
one so inexperienced
as to be caught with the goods.
The harder heart
requires the harsher penalty
in order to
once again
fracture the hull.
Justice for the offended
is a foregone conclusion,
but recasting the offender's heart
is much more difficult
than replacing a sheep.
1 Chronicles 20
In English (especially colloquial English), we have two sets of famous Rs. More specifically, the three Rs. There is one set of Rs to describe the main subjects in school: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic (math). Of course, these three words don’t all begin with the letter r, but all of them begin with the sound of the letter r. More recently, a second pair of three Rs has been coined and made famous by the environmental movement, as a reminder for what we should do to protect the Earth: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Photo © shutterstock.com/Melnik
The problem with sin is that we
want to have our cake
and eat it too,
just like Pharaoh,
who wanted to have his slaves
and free them too.
But not to decide
is to decide,
and not to give in
is to remain stubborn
and that has an effect.
We all think
/or want to believe/
that no matter
what we choose
we automatically
revert back to
this neutral default place
after each decision,
that our choices
don't have any lasting
consequences.
But that's ridiculous.
If you've lived in darkness
your entire life
and someone suddenly
turns on a light
you are no longer a person
who has only known darkness.
You cannot return
to saying that you do not know
what light looks like.
You may say it still,
all right,
but in your heart
you know it's not true
and that has an effect.
God is the Light of the World,
that Great Confronter who
scouts out
runs down
and passionately pursues
His darkness-dwelling
children.
He would not dream
of letting you remain
forever in your darkness.
He knows nothing of
live and let live,
has no hands-off policy,
and is generally unaccommodating.
He does not prefer to avoid confrontation.
As surely as He lives,
you live,
and as surely as He lives,
you will experience Him.
And when you do,
you cannot return
to saying that you have never
experienced Him.
You may say it still,
all right,
but in your heart
you will know it's not true
and that will have an effect.
And if you persist
in ignoring or avoiding reality
for long enough
you may just find yourself
in a chariot
at the edge of the sea,
unable to bat an eyelash
at the rising walls of water,
unable to wonder how or why the briny deep
is drawing back to reveal dry ground,
unable to think twice
before rushing headlong
into the foregone destruction
of a hardened heart.
1 Kings 20
Ahab has to be the most wicked king in Israel’s history. So that’s why I found it interesting that, in this chapter, God is still trying to get through to him. I mean, if I didn’t know that God was a total genius, there could be times when I might think that He was a little thick. But I just don’t think He can help Himself. When He sees an opening, He takes it.
