December 13

2 Chronicles 14-15 How do you do it? How do you seek the Lord with all your soul and strength? I remember doing weight training in off-season football. It is a very simple concept to know how to exert all of your strength in weight training. You mentally think about it. You determine to give it all. You lay down on the bench and grasp the weights and push with all of your might. The repetitions continue until the coach blows the whistle, or you reach your set number, or you reach muscle fatigue. After an hour work-out, your strength is gone. You know that you have given it your all. But the weight training does not end in the weight room. It followed us into the dining room. Our coaches were giving us all kinds of advice about eating healthy. They wanted us to buy this protein powder and consume it daily, to eat high protein meals and to avoid starches. I could not afford the protein powder, so they suggested drinking Knox Gelatin. We should take a packet, mix it with water and drink it. Oh! It was like drinking water with fine sand mixed in. I went from 145 to 170 that year. I was still skinny as a bean pole, but at least the number of pounds that I could bench skyrocketed. I gave it may all. But how do you do that with God? How do you give it your all? How do you know when you have achieved your goal? Hard questions! How do you search for God? The answers come easy off of the lips but are more difficult to put into practice. Jesus said in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. The first thing to do is the search the Scripture. But remember that when Jesus said this, He was speaking to a group of people who did not really seek Him. It is possible to be constantly in the Scripture, to be an expert concerning the Scripture, and to still not find Him. So even spending hours a day in the study of Scripture may not be seeking Him with all my strength? What else is needed? Jesus said in John 14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” To whom does Jesus show Himself? He shows Himself to those who keep His commandments. Hmmmm. . . . Obedience to what I find in Scripture is also an element to finding the manifest presence of God. Jesus also said in John 16:13-15: However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14“He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15“All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. So in addition to searching the Scriptures, there must be obedience to what is found and also a proper relation to the Holy Spirit. It sounds to me like this is a commitment that cannot be relegated to a training room. It cannot be relegated to an hour or an hour and a half on Sunday morning. If follows us everywhere. It is a training that enters every area of our lives and becomes first in every area of our lives. It is to those who follow such training that He shows Himself. It is a training that never ends. Asa did some hard things as he sought the Lord in His word. He stood courageous when out manned 2 to 1 and when the enemy had superior weapon technology (300 chariots). He removed abominable idols which his father and the people had placed throughout the land. He even removed his Mother from being queen mother because she made a horrid Asherah. Now that is commitment! He called the people to make a covenant to seek the Lord. Here was a training of seeking the Lord that followed him into every relationship that he had in life. But what does the writer say? “He (the Lord) was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.” Wow! He was found by them! Don’t you want that? I do! Lord, let this training follow me into every relationship in life, and let me find You for Your glory is worth the sacrifice of all that I am! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * Proverbs 13 Woody Guthrie of Okemah, Oklahoma, is well known for his folk ballads and social activism. One of his best known songs was “This Land Is Your Land.” I remember being in school viewing an old film of him leading social protests for workers’ rights and unions. He was definitely presented as a socialist. One of his more scathing protests was against organized religion. He certainly was an influence on Pete Seeger’s “You’ll have pie in the sky when you die.” I guess it was a commentary on the action of the fundamentalist church of the 30’s, which distanced itself from the social gospel and capitulated the ministry to the poor to the liberal church and eventually the government. He envisioned Jesus as preaching a gospel of mandatory giving up of all earthly material goods. You can hear his song at this site http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDS00Pnhkqk. (Woody might have been an acclaimed song writer, but I don’t know how anybody could stand his voice. Must be why he and Bob Dylan got along so well.) “There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches.” At least that is how the NKJV & the Authorized put it. All the others say “pretend to be.” It is an interesting nuance, but an important one. Which is correct? I don’t know. But ultimately there is one example that applies to the principle of this proverb. Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” What riches He had in heaven before He became flesh! He was constantly adored by the hosts of heaven. His praise literally shook the heavens. Then He left that throne room to add the nature of a man to his person. Born in the place where people kept animals, he was despised. His parents were put there because they were thought unclean, and therefore there was no room for them in the kataluma (Inn or guestroom). While He ministered, He had no home or bed of His own. He was literally homeless. He really was poor in the world’s wealth and reputation. He was not just pretending. He did it to purchase with His own blood His bride. In so doing He became wealthy in true wealth, not silver, gold, land, or power. He bought a beautiful bride. It is to be the marriage of the human to the divine. We are His bride, His riches. Somehow when I look at us, I think He got the short end of the stick. Yet I must remind myself that He is not finished cleansing and transforming us yet. It is indeed a process, and when He is done, it will mean great riches for Himself I’ll take it by faith. But we can come alongside Him in building His riches. We do it by becoming poor, just like He did. We let go of everything. When we do, He makes us rich. Lest I am misunderstood, it is not the riches of this life. I am infinitely richer than Bill Gates because I have Jesus, and to my knowledge, Bill Gates does not have Jesus. I am rich because of the great glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The most economically poor person on this planet, who has Jesus, is as rich as I am. That is because of His great glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * Revelation 4 "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!" the only other time in Scripture that this is recorded is in Isaiah 6. In John 12:41 the John says that Isaiah had seen the glory of Jesus when he described this event. I would presume once again that the One being seen here is Jesus. Everything was created by His will. He was. He existed before anything was created, including time. He is. He brought creation into existence, including time. I can't even think as to where to begin to try to illustrate such concepts. I think I understand the basic meaning of it. But describing infinite holiness is beyond me. The basic meaning of holy is separate. He is separate from us. Illustration and definitions require something to compare it to. But there is no other infinite holy being to give comparison or definition. We used to joke in seminary that our final exam would be to define God and give two examples. Oh, I left one phrase out. He is to come. I can grasp that a little. After all He came once in the flesh to give us an idea of what the Father is like and to rescue us from our sin. That is what Christmas is all about. It is the mystery of the infinite God adding the nature of a perfect man to the person of the Son. We celebrate His first coming at the darkest time of the year. That Son will come again. In the midst of the darkness, despair, pain and suffering that surrounds us, He is to come. He will put an end to sin and death. Disease and corruption will have no more place among us. We will then understand a lot of what we don't understand now, because we will see Him in His glory. Those creatures who experience His unveiled presence now cannot help but worship Him. His glory will outshine all the darkness we currently experience. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor John