Several of the things I’m looking at right now seem to be calling for reflection on wandering away from God and returning to Him. The Bible study I’m doing talks about the “perks” of sin versus the costs and asked us to look at a time in our lives when the “perks” helped us forget the costs. Since I spent over 15 years wandering away from God, I had plenty of times to reflect upon. I have been baffled in my thoughts, and realized if I could get a better grip on my own situation, I might be better able to relate to others.
My problem was that I had plenty of “perks” in my desert wandering time and I as look back, I didn’t see much in the way of cost. Even now, I have trouble identifying the costs in some ways. Even though I ended one marriage in divorce, I married the love of my life Ken, had great paying jobs, a nice home, nice cars, nice vacations, and despite infertility issues, was able to give birth to a son, my precious Alex. By worldly standards, not a bad life, there wasn’t much in the way of downsides to me.
So why did I come back to God? To be honest I’m not even sure I wanted to come back to God, or more accurately, saw a need to come back too close to God. I still acknowledged His arm’s length existence in my life, flirted with the idea of attending church, knew I should teach my son about Jesus, but never could muster up any enthusiasm for reconnecting in a personal way.
Here’s a real eye opener for me. I’m not sure I ever chose to go looking to come back to God. He was much more interested in me than I was in Him. He used my loneliness after our move to NC to get me to try a neighborhood Bible Study group. My need for human contact outweighed any belief in the Bible Study making any difference in my life. Boy was I wrong. During this time God began to show me how much He loved me even where I was way out there in the desert away from Him. I wasn’t useless or of no value. Those were the hidden costs of wandering for me. I often felt useless, lonely, unsatisfied and unsure of my purpose. God was the answer to those issues, but the “perks” of my life helped me remain numb to those feelings much of the time.
I didn’t know to go looking for something better. I didn’t realize how often I had been shielded from major disaster. I was content in my desert. God, however, was not satisfied for me. He desired something more for me and pursued me. I read this morning in some study notes in my Bible “No loyalty, achievement, or honor can compare to loving him”. However, I had to taste the living water again to know that. The “perks” of my wandering had dulled my taste buds and numbed my senses to God’s love and presence. So why did I come back? Because He came and got me. Did I find something better? Absolutely. I know who I am now, and can claim peace and joy even in trying circumstances. The time I now spend with God is much more satisfying than anything it replaced. I wish I could find the words to explain it better. I matter.
Now my concern is that many are where I was. The “perks” of their life keep them satisfied on the surface, and they don’t even know they are missing something. I think too often we think of those outside of a close relationship with Jesus as mired in misery and longing to be rescued. I don’t think most people view themselves that way. They are fine with their lives. Maybe that’s why so many are too busy to take the time to study the Bible. They don’t see the need for it. Maybe that is why I have become so passionate about doing Bible Study. No matter why someone attends, God still has something to say to them. I’ve seen it over and over again, starting with me. So my prayer is for opportunities to teach and be available where He desires and primarily for Him to fervently pursue those that desperately need Him, even if they don’t even realize they need pursuing.
Choose Joy!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Changes and Choices
I woke up this morning wondering what I would be writing about next, and realized that I didn’t have a clue. Then I did my Bible Study homework for the day this is what came about.
I was studying today about freedom from the shackles of sin and we were to read the following passage and note the Israelites’ condition. What resulted can only be from God, because I certainly wouldn’t have though of it.
Exodus 1:8-11 (NIV) –
8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
I underlined the following “did not know”, “deal shrewdly” (or wisely in the version in the book), “fight against us and leave”, and “forced labor”. While I’m not sure I actually followed the author’s instructions, God wove a strand between these phrases that describes our current lives much too often.
We as a culture “do not know” God any more. We had failed to know Him or have forgotten who He is. We decide to “deal shrewdly and wisely” with our situations, based on our own worldly knowledge. We fear that what we have and desire in our lives will “fight against us and leave”. So to keep this from happening we go into “forced labor” to hold it all together, trying to store up as much stuff as possible.
It is no wonder we are often left feeling stressed out, overloaded, unsatisfied and discontent. Our response to this is usually to make some changes and cut something out. Why is that usually attending a Bible Study, or church on Sunday, or reading the Bible, or prayer time?
The place where we can find peace, rest, contentment and satisfaction is often the first thing we chuck overboard when we feel overloaded. Is it because we don’t know what we are tossing away? Do we know God well enough to know what He has to offer, what He as promised or to trust Him enough to handle it all? Somehow, my being in control and looking out for myself sounds safer than letting Him take over. The world will tell you this is the safe way every time, but have you found that to be true?
The danger of cutting back just a little is that it will lead to a little more and a little more until we wake up one day and realize that we have made God a stranger in our lives. I have heard (and said) many times that I’m just too busy to study the Bible and spend time with God. That is the path to the wilderness. I know, I have been there. It is dry and parched. I spent too much time stressed out, dissatisfied and trying to find happiness. The world’s standards said I had a great life, but it was so much work to maintain that façade. What was the next thing to make us happy? Everything seemed just one step away from disaster, contentment was fleeting. I don’t want to go there again.
No matter where you are in your relationship with God, there is more to know about Him. So if you are thinking about making some changes, don’t push your relationship with Him to the side. Seek Him, He will find you.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV).
I was studying today about freedom from the shackles of sin and we were to read the following passage and note the Israelites’ condition. What resulted can only be from God, because I certainly wouldn’t have though of it.
Exodus 1:8-11 (NIV) –
8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
I underlined the following “did not know”, “deal shrewdly” (or wisely in the version in the book), “fight against us and leave”, and “forced labor”. While I’m not sure I actually followed the author’s instructions, God wove a strand between these phrases that describes our current lives much too often.
We as a culture “do not know” God any more. We had failed to know Him or have forgotten who He is. We decide to “deal shrewdly and wisely” with our situations, based on our own worldly knowledge. We fear that what we have and desire in our lives will “fight against us and leave”. So to keep this from happening we go into “forced labor” to hold it all together, trying to store up as much stuff as possible.
It is no wonder we are often left feeling stressed out, overloaded, unsatisfied and discontent. Our response to this is usually to make some changes and cut something out. Why is that usually attending a Bible Study, or church on Sunday, or reading the Bible, or prayer time?
The place where we can find peace, rest, contentment and satisfaction is often the first thing we chuck overboard when we feel overloaded. Is it because we don’t know what we are tossing away? Do we know God well enough to know what He has to offer, what He as promised or to trust Him enough to handle it all? Somehow, my being in control and looking out for myself sounds safer than letting Him take over. The world will tell you this is the safe way every time, but have you found that to be true?
The danger of cutting back just a little is that it will lead to a little more and a little more until we wake up one day and realize that we have made God a stranger in our lives. I have heard (and said) many times that I’m just too busy to study the Bible and spend time with God. That is the path to the wilderness. I know, I have been there. It is dry and parched. I spent too much time stressed out, dissatisfied and trying to find happiness. The world’s standards said I had a great life, but it was so much work to maintain that façade. What was the next thing to make us happy? Everything seemed just one step away from disaster, contentment was fleeting. I don’t want to go there again.
No matter where you are in your relationship with God, there is more to know about Him. So if you are thinking about making some changes, don’t push your relationship with Him to the side. Seek Him, He will find you.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV).
Friday, September 11, 2009
Considered Blessed
Recently I was reading a devotion passage from Luke 1, which contains Mary’s song of praise when she goes to see Elizabeth. Verses 48 and 49 spoke volumes to me that day and have inspired some study. In fact, there is more than I can cover in one post, so this will probably become a multi-part post.
Most of the time we consider ourselves blessed when good things happen to us. We feel blessed when we feel good. Not that those times aren’t blessed, but it is easy to feel blessed in those times. We don’t need help with the easy. We need help with the hard. We rarely consider trials, burdens, or suffering to be blessings.
Here are the verses in the NIV translation, because I think it conveys well something I discovered.
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
When I looked at the word “humble”, I was amazed as I discovered a couple of things. In the Greek it is a noun, not an adjective or a verb. That means it is referring to something, not something Mary was doing as a verb, or describing Mary as an adjective. It is referencing the “humble state” Mary was in. Here she is talking about her situation, not her actions or attributes. God had taken note of her humble situation, not her humility.
When I looked up the meaning of the original Greek word (Strong’s Number G5104 if any of you like that kind of thing), here’s what I found. The word tapeinosis is defined as “humbleness, lowliness, humiliation, low estate, made low, and vile”. For Mary to use this word, seems to indicate that she does not consider her situation to be comfortable or necessarily good. Possibly she is referring to her low social or economic status. Also, the average onlooker would consider a young unmarried girl being pregnant as a humiliation at the very least. Her situation had been made low, hardly the hallmark of blessing.
As I later looked at the word for blessed, I found that in this verse it is used as a verb and not as an adjective as found in the Beatitudes. As I sorted out that this meant, if I had been wearing socks, they would have been blown right off. I found an incredible contrast. Verse 48 is describing two different views of the same situation. While Mary made reference to her humble state, the generations would actively call her and her situation blessed. Mary could see her situation from her limited human view and through the Holy Spirit that others would see it differently, a blessed situation, receiving the favor of God. Mary could see this because she knew God was doing great things for her.
Here is a seed of the promise of our joy that we can water. What our human eyes see and emotions feel may be one of burden or suffering, but God’s perspective can reveal another view, we have received His favor. How can this be? This comes from knowing God intimately. If we know Him well enough to trust in his love, his promises, and knowing He is doing great things for us, we can believe there is another perspective. Here are just a couple of God’s promises that apply here.
Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Romans 8:28 - “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
If we believe He speaks truth, then we can find the hope and comfort that lets us know our joy is coming. Our short term sufferings are for our long term good and for the good of God’s Kingdom. Perspective beyond our own may reveal blessings. Maybe we can’t even see that perspective. Our feelings may not change at that moment, but I find comfort in knowing that God says it is not happening in vain. I just may not be able to see it. Do you know Him well enough to trust Him for that? If not, is now the time to get to know Him better?
Choose Joy!
Most of the time we consider ourselves blessed when good things happen to us. We feel blessed when we feel good. Not that those times aren’t blessed, but it is easy to feel blessed in those times. We don’t need help with the easy. We need help with the hard. We rarely consider trials, burdens, or suffering to be blessings.
Here are the verses in the NIV translation, because I think it conveys well something I discovered.
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
When I looked at the word “humble”, I was amazed as I discovered a couple of things. In the Greek it is a noun, not an adjective or a verb. That means it is referring to something, not something Mary was doing as a verb, or describing Mary as an adjective. It is referencing the “humble state” Mary was in. Here she is talking about her situation, not her actions or attributes. God had taken note of her humble situation, not her humility.
When I looked up the meaning of the original Greek word (Strong’s Number G5104 if any of you like that kind of thing), here’s what I found. The word tapeinosis is defined as “humbleness, lowliness, humiliation, low estate, made low, and vile”. For Mary to use this word, seems to indicate that she does not consider her situation to be comfortable or necessarily good. Possibly she is referring to her low social or economic status. Also, the average onlooker would consider a young unmarried girl being pregnant as a humiliation at the very least. Her situation had been made low, hardly the hallmark of blessing.
As I later looked at the word for blessed, I found that in this verse it is used as a verb and not as an adjective as found in the Beatitudes. As I sorted out that this meant, if I had been wearing socks, they would have been blown right off. I found an incredible contrast. Verse 48 is describing two different views of the same situation. While Mary made reference to her humble state, the generations would actively call her and her situation blessed. Mary could see her situation from her limited human view and through the Holy Spirit that others would see it differently, a blessed situation, receiving the favor of God. Mary could see this because she knew God was doing great things for her.
Here is a seed of the promise of our joy that we can water. What our human eyes see and emotions feel may be one of burden or suffering, but God’s perspective can reveal another view, we have received His favor. How can this be? This comes from knowing God intimately. If we know Him well enough to trust in his love, his promises, and knowing He is doing great things for us, we can believe there is another perspective. Here are just a couple of God’s promises that apply here.
Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Romans 8:28 - “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
If we believe He speaks truth, then we can find the hope and comfort that lets us know our joy is coming. Our short term sufferings are for our long term good and for the good of God’s Kingdom. Perspective beyond our own may reveal blessings. Maybe we can’t even see that perspective. Our feelings may not change at that moment, but I find comfort in knowing that God says it is not happening in vain. I just may not be able to see it. Do you know Him well enough to trust Him for that? If not, is now the time to get to know Him better?
Choose Joy!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Fear of the Lord
We had a great discussion this past Sunday in our Sunday School class at church and I thought it would be interesting to write about it as a follow up.
We were looking at Psalm 19 and verse 9 says “The fear of the LORD is pure” (NIV) and our teacher said that often the word fear is explained to mean awe or reverence. He then went on to ask what we thought about that. Someone said if it said fear it means to fear and that they indeed had fear of the Lord. I came home and looked up the Hebrew word used for fear in this verse. Strong’s defines it as a noun meaning, fear, reverence, piety. This same word is also translated in the KJV as dreadful and exceedingly afraid.
So, here are my questions –
Do you fear the Lord?
Should you fear the Lord?
I would love to hear your thoughts, and so as not to bias you, I’ll wait a few days before posting my thoughts as a comment. You of course know I have an opinion, wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.
So, ponder and comment. FYI, we never even got to the “pure” part in class.
Choose Joy!
We were looking at Psalm 19 and verse 9 says “The fear of the LORD is pure” (NIV) and our teacher said that often the word fear is explained to mean awe or reverence. He then went on to ask what we thought about that. Someone said if it said fear it means to fear and that they indeed had fear of the Lord. I came home and looked up the Hebrew word used for fear in this verse. Strong’s defines it as a noun meaning, fear, reverence, piety. This same word is also translated in the KJV as dreadful and exceedingly afraid.
So, here are my questions –
Do you fear the Lord?
Should you fear the Lord?
I would love to hear your thoughts, and so as not to bias you, I’ll wait a few days before posting my thoughts as a comment. You of course know I have an opinion, wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.
So, ponder and comment. FYI, we never even got to the “pure” part in class.
Choose Joy!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
What Is A Blessing?
As I began writing about a passage God had been teaching to me, the subject of being blessed and blessings became central and I realized I needed to get a better idea of just what being blessed or a blessing really is. So, I looked up the words used in the Bible for bless, blessed and blessing and found their definition. Then I began to ponder what all this was trying to tell me. Here’s where I am.
So what is a blessing? It is a gift, a special favor, mercy or benefit. It can be praise or thanksgiving. I also found it interesting that the Old Testament word “bless” can also be translated “to kneel down”. This evokes an image to me of humbleness in the act of giving or receiving a blessing. I will not be surprised if at some point God uses this visual idea to show me something. The New Testament word is “eulogia”. It means praise, thanksgiving, the extolling of another, generosity, and gifts. One definition included “to give a blessing is to act kindly”. Our word eulogy is related to this word.
Looking at it from the perspective of being blessed as opposed the blessing itself, the New Testament Greek word for blessed means “receiving God’s favor, fortunate, good, happy”. So it is not unexpected to think of happiness as part of being blessed. Some Bible translations translate the “Blessed” in the Beatitudes as “Happy”. However, I think I need to be careful of falling into the trap of thinking that the only times I have received God’s favor is when I feel happy. Receiving God’s favor isn’t limited to when I am happy. There are times we still have received God’s favor, but circumstances may not necessarily make me happy.
I can receive and give blessings. When I bless God, I am ascribing holiness to Him. When He blesses me there are two general categories the blessings fall into, temporal (vocabulary refresher here!) and spiritual. I can also bless others in temporal and spiritual ways.
Temporal blessings are temporary, and are often for provision and secular, the meeting of earthly needs. Often these types of blessings make me feel happy.
Spiritual blessings are obviously spiritual in nature, those relating to the Kingdom of God. These things impact the spiritual realm and the earthly church, corporately and individually. The length of their effect can be eternal. Sometimes these blessings make us happy. Sometimes I’m not sure I am even aware that I have blessed someone or have been blessed in spiritual ways until much later, if at all here on earth.
I’ve also noticed that blessings can be short-term and immediate, or long term and even multi-generational. For example, being able to put food on the table today is a short term immediate blessing. In contrast, the prophetic blessings such as Isaac and Jacob gave over their sons were long term, meant to be fulfilled throughout the generations. The same can be said of God’s covenant blessing to Abraham, it delivers eternal impact.
I know this has been a bit dry, and probably incomplete and less than perfect, but I really wanted to get a handle on blessings and being blessed before I went any further. So, I like having this to refer back to, knowing that being blessed means receiving the favor of God. This has also opened my eyes to think about the types of blessings I have been seeking and the types of blessings I should want to receive and give. Yes, I do want my earthly needs met and blessed, but am I seeking to be blessed and to bless in the spiritual realm?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time, Choose Joy!
So what is a blessing? It is a gift, a special favor, mercy or benefit. It can be praise or thanksgiving. I also found it interesting that the Old Testament word “bless” can also be translated “to kneel down”. This evokes an image to me of humbleness in the act of giving or receiving a blessing. I will not be surprised if at some point God uses this visual idea to show me something. The New Testament word is “eulogia”. It means praise, thanksgiving, the extolling of another, generosity, and gifts. One definition included “to give a blessing is to act kindly”. Our word eulogy is related to this word.
Looking at it from the perspective of being blessed as opposed the blessing itself, the New Testament Greek word for blessed means “receiving God’s favor, fortunate, good, happy”. So it is not unexpected to think of happiness as part of being blessed. Some Bible translations translate the “Blessed” in the Beatitudes as “Happy”. However, I think I need to be careful of falling into the trap of thinking that the only times I have received God’s favor is when I feel happy. Receiving God’s favor isn’t limited to when I am happy. There are times we still have received God’s favor, but circumstances may not necessarily make me happy.
I can receive and give blessings. When I bless God, I am ascribing holiness to Him. When He blesses me there are two general categories the blessings fall into, temporal (vocabulary refresher here!) and spiritual. I can also bless others in temporal and spiritual ways.
Temporal blessings are temporary, and are often for provision and secular, the meeting of earthly needs. Often these types of blessings make me feel happy.
Spiritual blessings are obviously spiritual in nature, those relating to the Kingdom of God. These things impact the spiritual realm and the earthly church, corporately and individually. The length of their effect can be eternal. Sometimes these blessings make us happy. Sometimes I’m not sure I am even aware that I have blessed someone or have been blessed in spiritual ways until much later, if at all here on earth.
I’ve also noticed that blessings can be short-term and immediate, or long term and even multi-generational. For example, being able to put food on the table today is a short term immediate blessing. In contrast, the prophetic blessings such as Isaac and Jacob gave over their sons were long term, meant to be fulfilled throughout the generations. The same can be said of God’s covenant blessing to Abraham, it delivers eternal impact.
I know this has been a bit dry, and probably incomplete and less than perfect, but I really wanted to get a handle on blessings and being blessed before I went any further. So, I like having this to refer back to, knowing that being blessed means receiving the favor of God. This has also opened my eyes to think about the types of blessings I have been seeking and the types of blessings I should want to receive and give. Yes, I do want my earthly needs met and blessed, but am I seeking to be blessed and to bless in the spiritual realm?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time, Choose Joy!
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