The Feast is Ready... Come!

Our grandchildren love to come to our house for special occasions and have a “feast” at our table. They call it that because we put on a tablecloth, we use special dishware, the food is placed in serving dishes, we put out special dishes with pickles, pickled beets, sliced homemade bread, and all their favorite foods. Our granddaughter loves to do little things to decorate the table and the area around the table too. It is a joyful time for everyone!

This morning as I was praying and worshiping God, He brought to mind the banquet that He prepares for me every day! He knows just what I like and what I need and He prepares a table for me each and every day and invites me to come, sit with Him, eat and drink and be filled. He puts the food in special dishes and makes it attractive. He serves only the best wine. And He lingers at the table in conversation with me, hearing my heart and telling me what is in His heart. He loves me and draws me into the conversation and teaches me many things.

Song of Songs 2:3-5 puts it this way, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love. Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.” Once we have experienced sitting at His table and being fed from His choice foods, we are drawn to that and desire it. My intimacy with Jesus grows as I spend time with Him at the table which He has prepared for me.

Psalm 23:5 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” When life is hard and things are pushing in on me, when circumstances are just plain horrible, still He prepares a table for me, feeds me and anoints me. And I am strengthened in order to face even the hardest things in life.

In Luke 14:16-24 Jesus tells the parable about a banquet. In summary, a banquet was prepared and many were invited to come celebrate at the table. But those who were invited were too busy. They had work to do, investments to check out, other people they wanted to see. And they refused to come. So the one who prepared the banquet invited those who were poor, crippled, blind and lame. And when the table still had room, he filled the table with those out in the country and surrounding area. All the self-important people who were first invited, missed this great event.

How blessed we are to be called to Jesus’ banquet table each day. He wants to feed us, strengthen us, heal us, and teach us as we feast at His table He has prepared for us. How sad He must be when we are too busy to come. How sad we will be when we realize we were invited, but we missed it because we chose to serve our busyness rather than sit at His table.

Lord, open my eyes to see the table You have prepared for me. May I never miss a time or place where You have invited me to dine with You. Continue to grow my intimacy with You. Teach me who You are and what You have for me to do each day. Thank You for calling me, inviting me and making room for me at Your table. Amen.

Intimacy with God

Friendship is a good thing. We all need friends. When I meet a friend for coffee, we usually express delight to see each other as we greet and prepare to spend some time together. We look forward to the encounter and we listen to each other’s hearts as we share our lives with each other. And when we part, we often make plans to meet again soon and anticipate that time of fellowship together.

What does it look like when I meet with God? Do I sometimes blow Him off because I am too busy? “Sorry God, just no time for you today. I need another hour of sleep and then I have lots to do.” Do I go through a routine that I designed to discipline myself to do ‘morning devotions’? I read so many chapters of the Bible. Yes, yes, I’ve read it before. I know what it says. I pull out my list of prayer requests and read through it. God be with this person. Heal that person. Give them what they want. And then rush into my day with no other thought of God and muscle through my activities whatever they are.

Jesus had much grace with the disciples as He instructed them in the years He spent with them. I think He has much grace for us too as we learn who He is and how to relate to Him. James and John wanted to be important in His kingdom. Philip struggled with trusting Jesus to come through. Peter thought he could handle it all until he found himself denying Jesus not once but three times! Somehow, when we come to the end of ourselves, we finally begin to look for Jesus.

The more I understand who God is, the more I get up in the morning with anticipation of our time together. The more I am overwhelmed by His love – that He would pay attention to me! The God who created the heaven and the earth and all that is in it would want to meet with me each day and share His heart with me! He has given me the privilege of praying – not so I can control the things happening around me, but so that I can join His heart for the people He cares about. He allows me to participate in the work He is doing!

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!” Lamentations 3:22-24 Jeremiah pens these verses in the middle of lamenting being homeless and grieving all that he has lost. And following these verses, he expresses his hope that he has found in knowing God’s love. He is able to worship God in the most dire of circumstances. Paul and Silas worshiped God while sitting in prison because they knew they were loved.

God has invited us to seek Him and to desire to be in His presence. “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

God is not hiding from us. He is right here in our midst, inviting us to come, rest in Him, receive nurture and friendship, and be loved. Meeting with Him isn’t a discipline, it is a privilege and an act of love for each other! When I have truly given and received that love, I am free to love others well. I John 4-5 lay out a beautiful picture of what it means to be loved by God and how that effects the way we behave toward others.  Our time of worship, listening, sharing, and receiving from God daily is so important to our relationship with God and it is what feeds our relationships with each other. I sure don’t want to miss that. Do you?

When God is Silent

One of the problems with the whole human race is that when things are going well, we tend to think we are doing something right and good and we don’t need God in our lives. We don’t talk to Him so much then. But when things are going poorly, we cry out to God to fix them so we can feel comfortable and successful again. I recently heard a young man say, “I don’t believe so much in a God who interacts with me or cares about me on a daily basis, but when I am in crisis, I do still pray!” Many people see prayer to God as a last resort, when nothing else could fix the problem and they don’t know what else to do. Something inside us cries out to God when we fear for our lives or the lives of loved ones.

Hezekiah was a great king in Judah. He is known for his faith in God when the Assyrian army came against Jerusalem. They had just successfully taken over many territories and informed Hezekiah and his people that their God was no different than the many gods they had overcome already. The complete story is in II Kings 18-20 and II Chronicles 29-32. King Hezekiah worked hard to fortify the city and reroute the water so it would not be available to Sennacherib’s army. Then he laid out the written threats and blasphemous words of Sennacherib before the Lord and prayed. And Isaiah prophesied and an angel of the Lord went out that night and killed 185,000 enemy soldiers. And Sennacherib went home in disgrace.

After that great “victory”, surrounding people groups feared King Hezekiah and paid tribute to him and he became very wealthy and respected. And then he had a life-threatening illness, and after praying, God healed him and gave him more years. This is the most dangerous time for leaders as they begin to think they are invincible, they become proud, arrogant, and entitled in their thinking. Hezekiah was no exception. But he is an exception in that when he was confronted by it, he humbled himself and repented.

Ambassadors from Babylon came to see if what they heard about King Hezekiah and Judah was true and II Chronicles 32:31 tells us that “God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart.” Hezekiah failed the test! Without God keeping him in check, Hezekiah’s pride took over again. He saw an opportunity to brag about all his accomplishments and all that he gained in his lifetime instead of an opportunity to give God the credit due Him. And the spies saw exactly what they needed to do to conquer this land.

I wonder what I do when God is silent. Do I still believe that He is the eternal God, the One who helped me get where I am today, the One who is always present with me, the One who will be there loving me no matter what my circumstances are? Or do I see Him as a distant memory? Do I seek His wisdom in all decisions, or do I think, “I got this!” Is my confidence in my own ability or in the ability God has given me and is willing to direct in me? Do I only call out to God when I am in distress? Or do I seek Him in all things? Do I trust and honor God, or believe I can and have to do everything on my own?

Hezekiah was a great king. But in the end, he lost it all for the future generations because of pride and failure to trust only in his God and give Him the glory for all that He did.

Oh God, help me to be faithful in trusting you whether I am successful or in need. Help me to never let pride cloud my vision and keep me from seeing you at work. And when you are silent, help me to trust you even more! Amen.

The Unusual Pairing of Ecclesiastes and Christmas!

What do Ecclesiastes and Christmas have to do with each other? I recently read a statistic that over 70% of all people approach the Christmas holidays saying they are depressed – some from grief of losing loved ones, some because they are more keenly aware of all they are lacking, and some for reasons only they know.

Ecclesiastes seems to be a dark book. Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless… But Solomon is onto something. He has explored all of life, the pleasures of this world, the wealth of this world, hard work and foolishness. He is one of the few people in the world that could say that he had it all! Yet, he realized that we all die – whether we are rich, have done it all, and own property and have power over other human beings, or whether we are poor and have nothing. We die and we can’t take anything we have possessed here on earth with us. In fact, we have to leave it here for others who didn’t earn it. This leads him to wonder, why are we here? What is the meaning in this life?

I think his question goes all the way back to Genesis – the beginning of time and the first humans in the Garden of Eden. Satan convinced Eve to take the forbidden fruit because he told her that her eyes would be opened. But the deceiver was lying. Her eyes were clouded and now though she could see more clearly the things of this world, she lost the ability to dwell in God’s presence and see the things of the spirit.

Solomon is actually getting a glimpse of what he is missing because of our human focus now on pleasure through things rather than pleasure through relationship with our Maker, the Maker of the universe! Without that eternal focus, our life here is meaningless. Jesus came to restore our ability to see and hear – to see God at work and to hear His voice instructing us which way to go, our purpose and destiny in this world. Without God, there is no meaning – only the seeking of comfort and pleasure.

This Christmas, as we celebrate with lights and gifts, let’s take time to adore and worship the King who came as a baby to open our eyes and give us true pleasure and meaning in life. It doesn’t matter if we are rich or poor, if we work with our hands or work with our minds, if we are grieving or feel on top of the world. He came to give us back our true sight – knowing and walking with our Savior, our God and Maker of the universe and all that is in it! Let’s focus and worship Him!

 

Where is My Hope?

Jesus said a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12;25). He also prayed intensely for Himself, for believers He had taught, and for believers to come in the future that they would be unified (John 17).

The weakest point in the history of the United States of America was during the years leading up to and including the Civil War – when people were divided strongly on the line of whether the government should be able to tell states what to do or not. The focus was slavery, but the issue was and always will be where the power and control lie. And it came out in an ugly war that pitted even family against family.

During the years of rebuilding, families came back together, grieved together, and found new strength. The problems were far from resolved, but people for the most part learned to live amicably with each other knowing that they did not want to go to war again. However, since the attack on the twin towers in 2001, a change has occurred. There was damage like the damage caused by a huge earthquake. And the aftershocks keep coming. People no longer trust in the goodness of each other. We suspect those who disagree with us of malintent.

Along with the political turmoil, communication between people has changed drastically. Where once families sat and talked with each other at the dinner table and discussed ideas, politics, religion, and family relationships, they now text each other with few words and little expression of ideas. Few people seem to know how to express their ideas and listen to the ideas of others. Judgment and misunderstanding is at an all time high and we hurt each other and hurt people hurt people and the pain grows.

And then the pandemic hit adding a high level of fear to the mix. Power and control among political leaders and lack of communication among the people made our society ripe for even greater mistrust and division. People were isolated in an attempt to control the spread of the virus. And the places where people went for emotional healing – family and church – also became divided along the lines of how serious the threat was and how to mitigate it. We divided among isolation vs. gathering, masks vs. no masks, vaccines vs. human immune system, and many other subtle and not so subtle divisions.

And still, lack of communication wreaks havoc among the people. Few people are interested in listening to the opposing view on anything. Misinformation spreads like wildfire across the Internet and social media. And sources of information that can be trusted are buried in it and difficult to find. So much information is driven by money and politics. People who were once friends yell at each other and call each other names.

And in this whole big mess, we begin to see the gods we worship, the places and things in which we put our hope for the future. And a still, small voice calls out, “I am still here. You can come to Me and lay your burdens down and I will give you rest. Spend some time in My green pastures beside the quiet streams. I have all that you need and give it generously and freely to you. Come! Taste and see that I Am good! My love for you is infinite and intimacy with Me satisfies like nothing else. I Am the Good Shepherd and I will guide you. Leave the chaos behind and follow Me.” (Matthew 11:28, Psalm 23, Matthew 7:10-12, Psalm 34:8, Psalm 103:17, Psalm 145:16, John 10:11-18)

There are those who listen to that voice. They choose another way. A way of peace and love. A willingness to lay down their points of view and listen to the fears and anxieties of others. No, they don’t make the problems go away, but they focus on the Problem Solver and trust in His goodness and ability to overcome. They seek to understand rather than to be understood. They show generosity toward others, especially those most hurt by the current conditions. They worship their God because He is worthy of their praise and because He brings victory after victory in their life and the lives of others. They live in a place of quiet trust, even when things around them look bleak. They trust that their Creator is working all things out. They trust His love for them. They trust that He can take what the enemy means for evil and use it for good.

They know who the enemy is and it isn’t their neighbor, their friend, their family or their political opponent. It is Satan. He has come to steal, to kill and to destroy. He is a liar and a thief. He deceives people and pits them against each other because he knows if they work together, he will lose. Jesus prayed for unity in all believers because He knew that would be our strongest defense against the enemy. That unity is not centered around sharing common political views or values. It is centered around seeking and obeying our Good Shepherd and learning and following the things He taught us through His life here on earth. When our focus is there, the things that divide us become much smaller and less toxic. Our fears dissipate because perfect love casts out all fear (I John 4:18).

There is hope, but it is not in charismatic leaders or government regulations or pharmaceutical companies or in any of the other things we think will save us.

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.

"When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.

"His oath, his covenant, his blood supports me in the 'whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.

"When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in Him be found. Dressed in his righteousness alone Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand."

Lyrics: Edward Mote (1797-1874)

 

When the Lion Roars

 Rejection. We’ve all experienced it somewhere along the line. For some it is severe rejection. We feel it when we are the last chosen for a pick-up field game with friends or classmates. We feel it as teenagers when we can’t seem to connect with others as we want to. We feel it when we don’t get that job we applied for. Some feel it as they go through divorce, abuse in the home, or abuse in the neighborhood or even church. The hardest kind of rejection is when we have poured ourselves into another, loved them deeply and invested much time and even money into them only to have them walk away or worse yet, demean us and then walk away.

Hosea was talking to the Israelites. God invested in Abraham, his son Isaac, and then Jacob who He renamed Israel. Then God invested much time and resources into Jacob’s descendants as He freed them from the slavery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. After years of living in prosperity in the land, they wanted to be like other nations and have a king. So God gave them a king. They continued to want to be like other nations until there was no difference between them and the nations around them!

God continually sent prophets to warn them and help them turn their faces back to God, but the people rejected the prophets and their message. Finally, when God saw that they could not be turned back, He sent Hosea and in Hosea 11, we see God’s heart crying out from the pain of rejection. He has raised Israel up, taught her to walk, loved her, given her everything she could want. Yet Israel has chosen to reject Him. And He says, “But since my people refuse to return to me, they will return to Egypt (slavery) and will be forced to serve Assyria (a foreign political agenda). Hosea 11:5 “For my people are determined to desert me. They call me the Most High, but they don’t truly honor me.” Hosea 11:7 The God of compassion is hurting from the rejection much as a parent carries the pain of a wayward child. There is nothing a parent can do but pray and wait and hope. Anything they say or do pushes the child further away and makes the rejection deeper. All they want is for the child to return with a soft heart, able to love them again like they did as a child.

God says, “My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows. No, I will not unleash my fierce anger. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you, and I will not come to destroy. For someday the people will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion. And when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west. Like a flock of bids, they will come from Egypt (slavery). Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria (foreign political agenda). And I will bring them home again,” says the Lord. Hosea 11:8b-11

Hosea still speaks to us today. Those who reject the ways of the Lord end up in all kinds of slavery. Addictions to wealth, status, power, food, drugs and alcohol to name a few. And they end up serving political agendas that are not of God’s design and become more and more restricting until the people are made into zombies not able to think for themselves or make choices. It is a little like a frog in water that is being heated. It doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize the danger until it is too late.

When a lion roars, we listen and we respond. When the lion roars, we will return from all that we have allowed to distract us and lead us away from Him and we will pay attention. He will then bring us back home to the completeness that He has designed us to be – to walk in His image. Oh that we would come willingly before He roars and experience His kingdom here and now! It is a kingdom filled with joy, peace, and love. The God who created us desires relationship with us and has gone to great lengths to keep the communications channel open and invite us home. How will we respond to Him?