July 6, 2010

Joshua 8

“According to the commandment of the Lord you shall do.” As communicated in earlier meditations, the killing of people is no longer part of God’s plan for His people. So what do we do with this? The conquest of Canaan is a type of spiritual warfare that we experience now. How do we deal with the enemy of our spiritual flesh? We kill it, thoroughly and completely according to the commandment of the Lord. When we do this, He leads us in victory. He leads us into the valley of Shechem between Mt. Gerazim and Mt. Ebal where we see the provision that Jesus has for us. There the cursings and the blessings of the law are fulfilled in Jesus, and as we are in Him, they are fulfilled in us. This is His glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!

--Pastor john

Acts 14

The glory of Jesus is never without witness. He is the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them. He is good all the time. He regularly sends rain from heaven and fruitful seasons. He fills our hearts with food and gladness. Yet on special occasions He performs signs and wonders, different from His daily acts of goodness. These acts thrill our souls. Perhaps you are one or have known someone who was miraculously healed by the Lord or had some mighty act done for you. Are these any less glorious than the daily things He does for us? If you really stop to think about it, no they aren't. They are just not as frequent.

In the midst of the mighty acts, Satan is always working. In the ones we see every day, he deceives us into believing that they are mundane and not glorious. In the infrequent ones, he stirs up opposition to rip our sails and cease our momentum. So it is with Paul. He is stoned and left for dead. You can be sure Satan, the world and the flesh were all behind that. But the Lord's glory will not be hidden. Jesus raised up Paul. Having been stoned and left for dead, Paul encourages the believers in Derbe with these words, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."

Jesus is indeed glorified when He does infrequent mighty acts through us. However, which is easier, to follow a leader who is winning battle after battle with very little casualties, or to follow a leader who says you must constantly be a casualty through your lifetime before you may share in His glory? I think we would all prefer the former and avoid the latter. And yet, if that leader is so loved by His subjects that they would constantly be casualties for the sake of His glory, which leader is more glorious? I think the love and loyalty of the latter would make the glory of that leader more precious. That is what Jesus is doing in this passage and in our lives. But it is difficult to follow Him if we focus on the pain and not upon His glory. Indeed, we serve a glorious king! Speak His glory to someone today!

--Pastor John