May 28

DEUTERONOMY 1
The colored glass filtered in through the stain glassed windows from the morning sunrise. While in college, I frequently came into the sanctuary to pray and seek God’s face. The beauty of the cool morning and colored light was conducive to seeking the glory of the LORD. Occasionally I would sense the presence of the Lord. It would make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, so to speak. I loved to linger there, but there is always a time to go, a time to begin ministering with and to others and a time to invade enemy territory and claim as the Lord’s. I love remembering that powerful presence of the LORD.
Within this chapter there are three main points in Moses’ remembrance of their travel from Egypt to the plains of Moab. The first is the command of the LORD to leave Mt. Sinai. At the mountain they had daily received a miraculous provision of bread and water. They had seen the tremendous manifestations of the glory of the Lord as He consumed everything on the holy mountain. They had seen the fire and smoke. They had heard the mighty thunderings and trumpets. They had heard the majestic voice. They had received the weighty instructions. They had built the tabernacle where the glory of the LORD would abide while in transit. And now, the LORD says, “You have stayed at this mountain long enough.” While the physical accoutrements of Mt. Sinai would lend oneself to desiring to leave, can you imagine having the privilege of experiencing all those manifestations of God’s presence?
“I alone am not able to bear you.” As Moses was recounting the administrative and leadership problems of leading 2 million people, we are reminded of a time when the strain of leadership was more than he could bear. Are there times in your lives when you feel stretched like a rubber band? Do the limits of your abilities feel like they are being squashed by the preponderance of demands weighing upon you? From the testimony of Moses, the LORD provided help for him so that he was able to bear it. His glory includes His provision such that when we are being squashed by our responsibilities or circumstances that He provides a way out.
The final point is the rebellion of the people in their refusal to take the land promised to them. They maligned the glory of the LORD by that refusal! They were essentially saying that the LORD could not or would not keep His promises. Their rebellion resulted in a whole generation dying in the desert. When I have seen His glory, been given grace to bear the tasks He gives me and then refuse to obey, I am walking on very dangerous territory.
His glorious light still floods our lives. There are times when He says, “You’ve stayed at this mountain long enough.” He sends us out to minister with and to other people. He gives us all that we need to bear it. Let us remember His glory when we are tempted to think that He is either unable or unwilling to empower us. His is all we need. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PSALM 147
My kitchen sink is clogged. It is most annoying. I spent an hour working on it Saturday afternoon. I thought I had it unclogged. A bottle of drain opener and gallons of HOT water and it seemed to be flowing. Sunday afternoon it was clogged again. We tried a bladder controlled high water pressure. It didn’t touch it. I poured boiling water down the drain. It is still clogged. I guess grease is pretty good way of stopping up sink drains. Boiling water normally melts the grease. I am really frustrated. I guess I am going to have to call Rotorooter. I think there is a metaphor in here somewhere.
Like the residue of grease from daily washing of dishes, sometimes the residue of sin builds up in our lives freezing the flow of life-giving water causing the build-up life disabling activity. In our seasonal year, God sends beautiful snow, frost, hail and other curious weather phenomenon. They are beautiful when temporary, but in areas where the seasons do not change (Antarctica etc.), the cold becomes deadly and the environment barren. When sin builds up, we need something to melt it away. He sends forth His word and it melts it all. It makes the water flow washing away the caustic sin of my life. That is what is amazing about Him. He can unclog my life when I am frustrated and unable. He does it through His word. That is His glory. That is why I daily need His word. Lord use you word to melt my heart frozen by the build-up of greasy sin! Unclog my spiritual heart! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

ISAIAH 58
There are fasts, and then, there are fasts. I have had times in my life when I have practiced various forms of fasting. There was a period when I fasted once week for 24 hours. Sometimes I have fasted for one meal in order to devote myself to prayer during the meal time. I have done a few week long fasts. Once I determined to observe a 40 day fast. I developed a cold during the fast. On the 26th day, I took some pseudoephedrine to lessen the symptoms of the cold, bad idea. I spiraled into panic attacks. Originally I thought it was the fast. Much later I discovered that the panic attacks were a reaction to the pseudoephedrine compounded by the fast. The hardest fasts are the 24 hour ones. For me after 1-3 days of no food, my digestive system shuts down, and hunger abates. Always when I fast, I have a goal in mind. Usually it is to hear something from the Lord or as a demonstration to myself to bring the physical under control in order to focus on something spiritual.
Because of passages like Isaiah 58, I seek to not make fasting a mindless ritual, but always have a purpose in mind, a purpose that hopefully increases my spiritual sensitivity to the Lord. I find great pleasure in eating. Like most people, I often eat when I do not need to eat. I eat for the sheer pleasure of eating. If I ate only what was good for me, and I exercised regularly, then I would probably weigh about 25 pounds less than what I weigh. But alas, I find great pleasure in eating, to the point that I am willing to carry around an extra 25 pounds. To fast is to definitely turn away from my own pleasure. One of the many things that the Lord desires of His children is that we learn the ability to give up (at His command) a current pleasure in order to gain a greater reward. Those rewards are things like:

1. Seeing justice prevail
2. Seeing laborers get their due wage
3. Seeing the bonds of wickedness removed from ourselves and from others
4. Being able to give more food to the poor
5. Being better able to properly clothe the ill clothed.

The result of this kind of reward is that the glory of the Lord is revealed as we pass by. The Lord delights in speaking to us. His guidance is made clearer. We learn to find our pleasure simply in Him, not in the things which He gives us. Am I really satisfied with just His glory? I should be. Somehow fasting helps make that a reality in my life-if the fasting is done for that purpose and not a rote ritual. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JOHN 10:22-42
I was in McDonald’s with Liam many years ago. A man was also there with his daughter who was about Liam’s age. While they played, the man began to express what was in his mind. As the conversation unfolded he began to talk about his niece who seemed to make one bad choice after another. He talked a lot about how some people’s problems are simply because they make one bad choice after another. I eventually waded in and said, “Have you ever made the choice to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.”
He quickly replied, “Yes, but I am not religious.” Then he went on to explain what he meant by that. As he meandered on in his soliloquy, it became obvious to me, but not to him, that actually he was religious but had never made the choice to trust Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. By being not religious he meant that had a hard time believing the Bible and that Jesus Christ really was who He claimed to be and that He had risen from the dead. My thought is, “How can one trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior if you think He is a mere man and that He is still dead?” I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t trust a dead man to save me. That is the height of spiritual suicide. On the other hand, to be religious is to follow a certain path in the hope of obtaining right standing with God. This man felt that as long as he did what he thought was right that, if there was a God, that God would receive Him. Now that is religion!
Jesus makes some astonishing claims in today’s passage. He says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” This man did not hear the voice of Jesus. He did not follow him. The glory of Jesus is that He does not leave us as orphans. When we trust Him as Lord and Savior, He gives us His Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit and through the written Word of God, all those who have trusted Him can hear His voice. When we hear His voice, we follow Him. This does not necessarily mean that every step of every day we always follow Him. But rather it means that if we truly are His sheep, over the course of time we can look back and see that He has kept us in some kind of close proximity to Him. As wicked as my heart is, that is truly amazing.
Jesus says, “I and My Father are one.” You cannot get a better claim to Divinity than that. He uses the neuter pronoun for one rather than the masculine pronoun. The classical explanation for this is that Jesus is referring to the essence of the Father and the Son are the same, they are one. His claim is not to be in the person of the Father, otherwise He would have used the masculine pronoun and there would have been no room for the Trinity as we understand it. Had He used the masculine pronoun, Jesus would have been claiming to be the person of the Father. As it is, He is claiming to be God (one in essence) but different in person. This is the glory of Jesus, He is God.
Jesus calls us to believe on Him not only on the basis of His claims but also His works. He says, “Believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” He is the one who turned water into wine. He demanded purity in worship. He discerned the hearts of men. He called the social pariah to Himself. He healed the Nobleman’s son. He healed the man who was infirm for 38 years. He fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. He walked on the sea. He forced men to acknowledge their sin in front of the woman caught in adultery. He healed the man born blind. He raised Lazarus from the dead. But His greatest work was done upon the cross and in the resurrection. His resurrection was the sign, the work upon which He calls us to believe in Him. This is the glory of Jesus. He has defeated sin and death. He lives again to evermore intercede for us! Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
P.S. I wish I could say that I was able to introduce the man at McDonald’s to the Lord Jesus. But it was apparent that he was more interested in expressing his own thoughts than gazing upon the glory of Jesus. Let us not be that way.