Faith of the Fathers

The three Patriarchs of the people of Israel were amazing examples of faith. Yet, it's difficult to beat the example of Abraham offering Isaac in obedience to the One promising him children. This event is recorded in detail in Genesis 22. God tested Abraham. In the Hebrew, this word for "test" can refer to temptations as well as qualitative tests.

The word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Septuagint) is also used by the writer of Hebrews in 11:17 for "test". It refers to testing to determine quality, and sometimes originates from ill will (temptation). God does this sort of thing with us, but we are not to do such things with Him (Luke 4:12, quoting Deuteronomy 6:16). The Pharisees did this sort of testing of Jesus constantly.

So, here's the way the writer of Hebrews uses it:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. (Hebrews 11:17-19 NASB)

Think through this test for a second. In Genesis 21, God has had Abraham send away Hagar and Abraham's son Ishmael, telling Abraham that Isaac would be the "child of promise". Now, "some time later", this same Yahweh calls on Abraham to kill Isaac, specifically calling out both Isaac, and the special relationship between he and Abraham. Think about that for a second. It should give you chills. It should give you some pause for a moment, possibly even doubt. Because behind this story is the reader's reaction of "what might my Savior ask of me?" And that's a very good question.

The test of Abraham is of his quality of belief. God had promised that He would fulfill Abraham's promise through Isaac. So, Abraham had to decide whether he would believe this God even when He seemed capricious. Did Abraham believe that this God would make good on a promise even when He seemed to be reneging? Do you?

When things aren't going well, do you still believe in the goodness of our Savior? When it's no longer "fun", when it's taking too long, when you are actually being persecuted and suffering, will you persist in your belief of the goodness of your Creator? Is Jesus still on His throne interceding for you? Is the Father still caring for you? Is the Spirit of the Living God still residing within you? Do you still believe, even when it's not convenient, popular, fun, or even safe? What if persisting in belief and being obedient actually costs you something precious?

It's easy to answer "yes" in the abstract imagination of "what might be". I suspect that I have a limit to my faith. I don't know where it is, exactly, but I suspect it wouldn't be very difficult to find. I have spent time doubting my Savior. I have spent time behaving as if He was't real, His promises weren't sure, and as if He didn't truly love me. For some peculiar reason, He still forgives me. I can't answer the above questions with absolute confidence because I haven't been tested to the extremes of my faith, not yet, but my day is coming.

How about you?

Storms

"Then He [Jesus] arose and rebuked the wind

and said to the sea, 'Peace, be still!' And the

wind ceased and there was a great calm."

     Mark 4:39 (NKJV)

"For He commands and raises the stormy wind,

which lifts the waves of the sea. . .He calms the 

storm, so that its waves are still."

    Psalm 107:25, 29 (NKJV)

 Now that spring is here in Minnesota, we encounter wind and rain, thunderstorms, hail and even tornadoes.  To increase my knowledge of what to look for in stormy weather, I watched a webinar by the National Weather Service.  It was interesting and informative, but not surprisingly, there was no acknowledgement that God is behind the weather.  We know that the Lord Jesus is Creator and Master of heaven and earth, and that even the wind and the storms obey Him.

When I was growing up, there were a lot of tornadoes in our area and they really scared me. (That's one reason I never liked the Wizard of Oz movie.)  I didn't know Jesus then so I had no good way to calm my fears. I'd heard about Him but it wasn't until decades later that I accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord. I still get uneasy when the skies get dark and tornadoes are threatened, but now I know to turn to my Rock and my Fortress.  Jesus can speak peace into our hearts during all kinds of storms.  We read His word and find comfort, strength; we seek His face in prayer and are quieted.

 Jesus is God of the storm and God in the storm. If you're trusting Christ as your Savior and Lord, that should bring peace to your heart. 

For those who are interested, a song link: Master of the Wind by Candy Hemphill Christmas.

Thursday Devotional - Courage to do Nothing?

Jesus timely encouraged Paul in prison, giving him assurance he would go to Rome to testify. Jesus is trustworthy and Paul didn’t have anything to worry about, but did that mean he sat back and did nothing?  

Paul was in prison, so there wasn’t much he could do besides pray. Although he was already in prison, the Jews’ continued plots to kill him. God had Paul’s nephew find out about the plots, though, and he told Paul.

Paul could have told his nephew “Just trust God. Don’t worry about it!” since Jesus told Paul he would testify in Rome. However, Paul wisely (and prayerfully, I’m sure) did what he could do by sending his nephew to the commander.

Acts 23:17-22 ¹⁷ Then Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander; he has something to tell him.” ¹⁸ So he took him to the commander.

The centurion said, “Paul, the prisoner, sent for me and asked me to bring this young man to you because he has something to tell you.”

 ¹⁹ The commander took the young man by the hand, drew him aside and asked, “What is it you want to tell me?”

²⁰ He said: “Some Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin tomorrow on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about him. ²¹ Don’t give in to them, because more than forty of them are waiting in ambush for him. They have taken an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are ready now, waiting for your consent to their request.”

²² The commander dismissed the young man with this warning: “Don’t tell anyone that you have reported this to me.”

Paul had active faith. He also had the Holy Spirit and godly wisdom.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we can fully trust God as Sovereign and in control of everything. That doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing. We are to have active faith. We can pray for wisdom to listen to the Holy Spirit’s direction on how to use the information available in a way that glorifies God and accomplishes His will. How will you and I do that today?  

Alice

When To Follow, When To Lead

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Stay there, and I will give you the tablets of stone on which I have inscribed the instructions and commands so you can teach the people.”  So Moses and his assistant Joshua set out, and Moses climbed up the mountain of God.

Moses told the elders, “Stay here and wait for us until we come back. Aaron and Hur are here with you. If anyone has a dispute while I am gone, consult with them.”  Exodus 24:12-14

Leading is hard.  I find this out every time my daughter decides to push a boundary, and each time my wife and I disagree on something.  My challenges to help people grow and to work with those who may struggle while still managing to achieve the goals of the business at work is nothing short of an undaunted task.  Some might say ‘undaunted’ is a strong word for the simple day to day task and compared to a soldier in the Alamo when it was under siege, it is not that undaunted at all.  But if you have a family and perhaps others that depends on you and your successes, the weight on one’s mind can make it seem that way.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Abraham Lincoln.  Him being a man of faith once said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”  And yet, he was arguably the greatest President of this nation.  How do you go from ‘my own wisdom and that of all about me’ being ‘insufficient’ to greatness?  It really depends on who you follow and what you learn when you lead.

God provides for us a shining example how to follow Him, and in kind, instructs us on how to lead others.  In reading through this portion of Moses and the journey to The Promised Land, he and several of his leaders and elders are climbing the mountain to God.  In today’s verses, the Lord instructs Moses to carry out His plans for Israel, and two key words shape the narrative here.  The first word ‘come’ was a command that Moses was to follow.  The saying is those who are great leaders must first become great followers.  They are willing to take instruction and commands, and Moses proved his willingness to follow the Lord’s commands at multiple turns.  Second was the word ‘teach.’  This implied to help others.  God could have just as easily come down from the clouds and spoken with fire and brimstone, but Moses was His guy!  Through trials and doubts (remember Moses considered himself not the most eloquent of speakers), he had grown to become the trusted leader of Israel.  And as such, God entrusted him to teach the others.  This principle is not to say everyone must lead.  God gives us all an opportunity to come to Him and learn of His goodness and grace.  In doing so, we are given additional opportunities to teach others these things as well.

God’s plan is always multiple steps ahead of our own.  Our goal is not attempting to outwit Him.  It is to prepare and act on what is needed when called upon.  Sometimes it is to come closer to Him.  Others, it is to teach.  Lincoln understood this as well.  In the middle of the Civil War, he wrote a proclamation for a day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer saying:

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.  Presidential Proclamation 97, March 30, 1863

Lincoln was humble enough to fall to his knees understanding he didn’t have all the answers, and wise enough to remind a nation where grace, sufficiency, humility, and forgiveness come from.  That is why Paul wrote to Timothy, “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.  Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)  I pray we are so humble as to know when to follow, and when chosen, to lead.  Amen.

The Faithful Example of Abraham

The "Role Call of Faith" continues in Hebrews 11. After the "antediluvian" examples, we reach Abraham. He is such an important example, there are four instances listed where he shows great faith. We're going to look at three of them:

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN IN NUMBER, AND INNUMERABLE AS THE SAND WHICH IS BY THE SEASHORE. (Hebrews 11:8-12 NASB)

The first is the call. Abraham responds when Yahweh calls him to leave Haran and head to Canaan (Gen. 12:1-4). He responds by obeying, and this meant leaving the comfortable and known and going to the uncomfortable and unknown. There was a promise involved, so, obedience was to be rewarded. But there had to be belief involved, trust in the One making the promises. You and I are called. And there are promises involved. Will we obey, leave the known for the unknown, the comfortable for the uncomfortable? Will we trust the One making the promises?

And then we have the demonstration of faith in Abraham living as a sojourner in the land promised to him. Here the other patriarchs are mentioned, along with a reason for living this way. They were "looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder are God." Really? Is that why they lived in tents in Canaan? Reading the Genesis account of these men may not leave you with that impression, but what does become clear is that they lived in tents in a land they believed was theirs.

Living in a land believed to be theirs, meant living among cities of stone, and those who lived in them. It meant pasturing flocks around tilled fields of others in a land you knew was yours. It was an act of faith that waited for the timing of the One making the promise rather than taking matters into your own hands (except possibly for Simeon and Levi at Shechem).

How willing are we to faithfully persevere in obedience, even not seeing the promise? How long will we wait for the promise, while being obedient? Abraham sometimes waited more than a decade before another recorded conversation with the One making these promises. How long will we live in tents, temporary houses, waiting on the promise of real permanent mansions? The writer of Hebrews is pushing his audience to persevere to the very end.

And Abraham is used again, along with Sarah, in faithfully conceiving Isaac. Think about that, though. How much faith did that take? We tend to skip by the uncomfortable consideration of intimacy between spouses here. But, really, is it surprising they conceived? Abraham had been promised, and specifically promised that one from Sarah would be his heir, not Ishmael. He laughed, as did Sarah, but the "mechanics" of the process hadn't changed. It's just that this time it worked. And yet, the writer of Hebrews calls it faith.

 And, I suppose, it was faith. After Sarah dies, Abraham has other kids, so it wasn't Abraham who had the difficulty, it was Sarah who was barren. That's not a criticism, it's an important detail. Abraham doesn't "jettison" his wife at any point along this process. She's not the "problem", from his point of view. He is dedicated and devoted to her even though she cannot, in herself, provide the promised child. In a way, her barrenness is what brings God to the forefront. Unless He steps in, nothing changes. But, even as long as he doesn't, Abraham is faithful to this barren woman, and is for her whole life. That's faith.

You see, we can become so pragmatic about how God's promises are fulfilled. We can "see" His work, only under certain parameters, as if He can only work in certain ways. And yet, Abraham simply obeys God, remaining faithful to this woman who cannot provide him a son, an heir, the one thing he needs to see what he has been promised. And in remaining faithful to her, he remains faithful to the One promising.

Let's pay close attention to the example of faith provided in Abraham. Let's be uncomfortable, persevere without seeing our hope fulfilled immediately, and live faithful to the ones our Savior has provided to us. Being cooped up with people around the ones we love can strain that love. But it can also build it, renovate it, rejuvenate it, and make it new again. Your choice. Like Abraham, let's choose faith.

His Yoke

“Come to Me all you who labor and are

heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take

My yoke upon you and learn from Me,

for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and

you will find rest for your souls. For My

yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

     Matthew 11:28-30 (NKJV)

I've been chafing under these distancing restrictions and the isolation imposed upon us. Even if the measures are reasonable and necessary for a time, my flesh still rebels. Like a dog pulling against collar and leash or a horse against bridle and bit. But this kind of struggle is usually futile and often brings negative results—and indeed, all I've done by fretting to be free from these constraints is make myself irritable and frustrated. 

By comparison, the Lord Jesus invites us to take His yoke upon us and He assures us that by doing so we will find rest.  In farming terms, a yoke is a harness, a restrictive device, but Jesus says that His yoke is easy. One of my study Bibles comments that in this passage, Jesus is contrasting the heavy burden of legalism the Jews were chafing under with a personal relationship with Him (the yoke) that brings joy and peace, and enables obedience to Him and righteousness (the burden). 

What I know is that when I come to Christ with a surrendered heart every day, I find rest for my soul. When I depend upon Him for all things, the burdens of the day seem lighter. I’ve learned to cherish the yoke of Jesus because it symbolizes His protection, His provision and His guidance.  I love His yoke upon me because it means that I am His possession, His child.

Are you finding rest today within the yoke of Jesus by learning from His gentle and lowly example? Are your burdens lightened by giving them to Him in trusting dependence?

Thursday Devotional - Timely Encouragement from Jesus

Have you been timely encouraged recently?

Last week we saw how Paul was ready and willing to die for Jesus as he traveled back to a hostile Jerusalem. Things went well for the first week in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17-26), but then he was wrongly accused, seized, and dragged out of the temple to be killed. God sovereignly had the Roman commander and troops intervene and spare him. The Jews were determined to kill him, though, and continued their wrongful accusations (Acts 21:27-23:10).

That’s when Jesus timely appeared:

Acts 23:11     The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

Jesus didn’t promise it would be smooth sailing, but provided renewed confidence, a new assignment, and evidence He was watching, caring for Him and in control.

I have found it so timely that everyone in the Bible study I’m in has been studying Paul’s difficult trials and hardships while we are going through our own new challenges. It has so encouraged me to keep everything in perspective! Jesus’ words to Paul can apply to us. We are to “take courage!” He’s aware of everything going on around us and everything going forward. He’s in control. He’s watching. He has new and different assignments for us during this time. I can trust Him!  

I know several of the devotional writers have shared timely encouragement from God and His Word during this time. Feel free to share any other Scriptures that have really encouraged you recently!

Alice

The New Normal

As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them. They cried out to the Lord, and they said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves for us in Egypt? What have you done to us? Why did you make us leave Egypt?  Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’”

But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again.  Exodus 13:10-13

I was listening to a sermon the other day, and the pastor said something that was so spot on.  He spoke of dealing with the seismic events that change things from what they have been to a new way of life.  We all have a clear understanding of what that looks like today, and no matter our belief system, we realize that what we viewed as normal a month or two ago will never be the same again.  He pointed out some of us will have this level of nostalgia longing for not only the good things of yesterday but also many of the things we used to complain about.

As I pondered those words he spoke, I asked myself about those things that I used to complain about that I somewhat miss now.  I miss seeing my team at work and how they interrupted me in the middle of a task that had a 5:00pm deadline.  But you see, the only difference is that my wife will do it now (giggles).  But I miss them.  All of them!  They matter to me.  We all remember things from our childhood that made us feel good like having the first Atari game system on the block (dating myself).  But we forget our parents had rules, and we could not always go to Kenny’s house because we did not finish our homework.  When we think of spiritual growth, we realize that we must look forward as Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.  But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) What I am getting at is that seismic change is another way of God saying you need to do something different.  But all because we need to do something different does not mean He has changed.  In fact, the thing that may need to change is our dependency on Him.

God driven change requires forward thinking.  Not backward.  Let’s circle back (with a forward lens 😊) to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.  For those keeping score, I wrote about this back in February (see https://trdailydevotional.blogspot.com/2020/02/taking-care-of-itself.html).  As I was driven back to these verses, the thought was not on how we should trust God as I wrote back then.  That is a given.  Instead today’s focus is on why the Israelites did not trust God.  Here is where context is critical, and therefore the pastor’s message was outstanding to point this out.  The Israelites had been in bondage for over four centuries.  That means five generations of knowing nothing but building pyramids, being whipped, and having a little something to eat.  That is the only life they had known.  So now having the experience of freedom for the very first time, they are being chased down by Pharaoh’s army.  The God that led them out was their ‘new normal.’  It was unknown.  Of course, what they knew for generations was going to look better!  They did not yet understand God’s protection.  That’s why they said, “It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness.”  When threatened, don’t we run to what we know, too?  Might we too fail to recognize what God is doing?  I am not saying to not long for some of the things that are good in our lives.  A sibling’s hug.  Girls night out.  Men’s Bible Study just before Monday Night Football.  What I am saying is there is probably a lot God wants us to change, and now is that time.  More time with family and spouse.  Healing old wounds.  Getting rid of a bad habit or toxic relationship.  Finding new ways to connect with Him.

God has gifted you with an opportunity today!  In the prophecy of Isaiah speaking of the coming of Jesus, He said, “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)  We have a choice.  We can clamor for the way things used to be.  Or, we can take inventory in our lives, and look to God to break chains of bondage and make passage through our Red Sea of impossibility.  Let us move forward in this time of drastic change.  What can you do differently today to connect and reconnect with God?  With others?  What actions will you take going forward in your own spiritual growth?  My prayer is we take a moment and look enthusiastically forward to ‘The New Normal.’  Amen.

Evidence Unseen

We say it, "seeing is believing", but I don't think we believe it . You can probably think of something you've seen (or you think you've seen) but still struggle to wrap your head around. I experienced a "near car wreck" in my '20's that I still struggle to believe, and when I tell people about it, they look at me rather incredulously. And they should. It's difficult to believe.

So, when the writer of Hebrews floats a definition of faith by us, and we don't stop to pick it apart, that's probably why. We already can think of a few things that aren't God and which we still struggle to believe, even with evidence. If we can struggle with faith in seen stuff, accepting unseen faith in God is easier. Does that sound backwards? That's probably more psychological than philosophical, but it's still true.

Even so, let's look more closely at the definition of faith provided by the writer of Hebrews, especially the second half:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. Hebrews 11:1-2 (NASB, emphasis mine)

I had this whole write up ready for "assurance" but I'm focusing on "conviction", and have to switch gears. Be thankful.

The New American Standard uses "conviction", but you may be more familiar with "evidence" here. Those two terms are not the same in English. "Conviction" is a conclusion derived from some process (perhaps including evidence), "evidence" is what is used to derive a conclusion. That's not an unimportant distinction. Take a moment and think about it. Is faith the end of the process or an element of it?

As part of your process in drawing a conclusion about whether faith is evidence or assurance, keep in mind that this statement sits parallel to the first part of the definition, "substance of what is hoped for", where, again, the NASB has "assurance". Here, once again, the choice is between an element in the process of arriving at a conclusion, or the conclusion itself. Does that sound unnecessarily confusing? I hope not.

It isn't absolutely necessary to think about what you think about. I find it helpful. I prefer the elements in the process of coming to a conclusion rather than being handed a conclusion. But honestly, in discussing the Creator of the universe, it makes more sense to simply receive the conclusion. Faith is received (Ephesians 2:8,9). Is it "evidence"? In a very important sense, yes, it is. But in another sense, faith is the conclusion we live by.

The word "things" in the term, "things not seen" is the Greek word from which we get "pragmatic". For the Greeks it referred to "matters" personal, business, governmental, or even legal. So, events, points in time, of a practical nature, relating to daily life, but which are not seen, what are those? Creation? Salvation? Jesus' life, His resurrection, His ministry of intercession? All of these, and all the rest of Scripture, make up the pragmatic things we haven't witnessed personally, but about which we are convinced. 

Having been convinced of these things, we live our lives, make decisions about what to say, where to go, what to do. That is faith. We have hope in a future with Jesus, and faith gives substance to that hope. That assurance of such a future enables us to behave as if it's true. But there is so much we cannot see, so much that affects our day-to-day lives outside of our view. And we need the gift of faith from our Savior to live out our days convinced it is all proven, even when we can't see it.

Some thoughts about faith. I hope they help you through another day in quarantine.

His Story

“So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that

Jesus Himself drew near and went with them . . .

Then He said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of

heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and

to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and

all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the

Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”

     Luke 24: 15, 25-27 (NKJV)

This passage describes the encounter of Christ with the men on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection.  It give us great insight into what Jesus says about Himself and about Scripture.

Jesus is the living Word (John 1:1, 14) and all the Bible speaks of Him, as He explained to the men. A pastor I know likes to say that the Old Testament is not just history, it’s His story, and that Jesus can be found on every page in Bible. While we don’t have Jesus physically walking by our side as they did, we do have the Bible. And as He gives them understanding, so the Holy Spirit will help us understand as we read His holy word if we ask.

Notice that Jesus says the men were foolish not to have believed what was written in the Bible.  He’s physically, visibly in front of them, with nail-scarred hands, and yet he points them to Scripture.  We would do well to have such a high view of the Bible and affirm it’s inspiration and inerrancy. But it’s not enough just to read the Bible and know what it says. Jesus said they needed to have faith in Scripture and believe it as truth.  Let us not be foolish and slow of heart as they were.

Instead, we would be wise to pray, as the psalmist does: "Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law." (Psalm 119:18, NKJV) Let us come with open and humble hearts daily to read and learn from His story.