Category Archives: The Majesty of God

Oh Shoot

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If Iran gets a nuke, would God stand by and let them wipe Israel off the map?  He let it happen before, about 2700 years ago. God had planned to use Israel to bless other nations as a living demonstration of how much better life works when you pay attention to the real God,  But, when they turned away and began to follow the gods and customs of their neighbors (now called Iran, Iraq and Syria), He allowed those countries to literally wipe His people off the map.  Almost.  God had not given up on His original plan.  Speaking through Isaiah, He said:

” A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse [i.e. Israel]; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1, my explanation of “Jesse.”)

My neighbor got fed up with his apple tree.  You couldn’t eat the apples and it messed up his yard in the fall.  Here’s a picture of what used to be his apple tree:  .wpid-wp-1430490990902.jpg

It looks a bit like Israel did after they stopped  producing the kind of “fruit” God had intended.  But look very closely at the bottom, left corner of the picture.   Here’s a blow up:

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That’s a shoot, coming up from the stump of his apple tree.  You have to look carefully to even notice it.  To the casual observer it doesn’t look like it will amount to much.

 

You could make the same mistake when it comes to Jesus, the “Shoot” Who sprouted from the “stump” of God’s Chosen People.  You might miss Him, such a seemingly insignificant figure, compared to the might and grandeur of Rome.  But Rome has fallen and the “Shoot” is still growing.  Jesus is still blessing people of all nations who come to Him to be reconciled to God.  He is “bearing the fruit” of leading people to the real God.  Here’s more of what Isaiah wrote:

” A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (Isaiah 11:1-5)

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

 

What Will Happen

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What’s going to happen next in Iran?  Who knows?  How about in Iraq, Syria or Israel?  Who knows about Yemen?  Experts and national leaders alike can only guess.  News commentators are at a loss.  And yet, there is Someone Who knows and He’s proved it.

If the current situation in the Middle East seems complicated, check out the history of that region during the last few centuries BC.  The Assyrians and Babylonians conquered the Israelis, lost to the Persians, who then were conquered by the Greeks, whose kingdom broke up and was taken over by the Romans.  And the whole, complex, seemingly chaotic series of events was revealed in advance to the prophet, Daniel. Read the 10th and 11th chapters of Daniel.  The specificity is amazing!  For example, he wrote:

““The king of the South will become strong, but one of his commanders will become even stronger than he and will rule his own kingdom with great power. After some years, they will become allies. The daughter of the king of the South will go to the king of the North to make an alliance, but she will not retain her power, and he and his power will not last. In those days she will be handed over, together with her royal escort and her father and the one who supported her. “One from her family line will arise to take her place. He will attack the forces of the king of the North and enter his fortress; he will fight against them and be victorious.” (Daniel 11:5-7)

A couple hundred years  after Daniel wrote those prophecies, they took place!  The “King of the South” was Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his daughter was named Berenice.  It all happened!  Daniel’s writings were so specifically accurate that some doubt that he could have written them in advance.  And yet, there is compelling evidence he did.  God proved He knew what would happen.

My point is this: Even in the midst of our current, global, political chaos, God is not surprised or defeated.  He knows.  He not only knows because He is in control.  He also told Daniel about events still in our future.  He said:

“… There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” (Daniel 12:1-3)

Jesus reaffirmed the certainty of those promises.  Daniel got it right.  “Those who are wise” will draw close, through Jesus, to the One Who knows.  He knows what will happen in the Middle East.  He knows what will happen to you.

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Teach Your Children Well

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“Don’t forget to put on clean underwear!”  Did your mother ever say that?  “If you get in an auto accident and the medics cut your clothes off, you don’t want to be embarrassed…”  Just saying, but if the situation is that dire, your undies are probably going to be soiled anyway!  But mothers naturally want to pass along important lessons for life.

That being the case, I am troubled when I hear parents say, “I am not going to teach my children about God; I think they should make up their own minds when they are old enough.”  Really?  The problem with that reasoning is that every new generation then has to figure out about God, starting from scratch.  Almost certainly, that means they must find out some important things about life the hard way.  Listen to the wisdom in Psalm 78:

“…what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their forefathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.” (Psalm 78:3-8)

Before my dad let me take the car, he taught me how to drive safely, how to listen for problems, read the gauges, check the oil and change a flat.  Kids are born these days with innate understanding of computers and smartphones, but you have to teach them how to cross the street and what a gas leak smells like.  Teaching them about God and about His instructions for life is even more important.

That is, provided you know about God yourself.  If the god you know is angry and vindictive, bitter and repressive, please don’t tell your children about him.  He’s not the God Who “so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son,” the Son Who said,

… “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14b)

Perhaps one of the strongest things you can teach your children is what God has done in your own life!  And, by the way?  The part about letting your kids decide for themselves?  You don’t have to worry about that; kids do it anyway. They will decide for themselves about changing their underwear.  But the stakes are much higher when it comes to knowing the Creator and about how He told us to live.  Teach your children well.

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Who’s in Charge?

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“Take me to your leader!”  That line conjures up the old, jittery, black and white, alien invasion movies of my youth.  If aliens did land on earth and asked that question today, depending on where they put down, they’d get very different answers.  Imagine if they landed in Iraq, or Yemen, or even Washington D.C.   Who’s in charge here?  Because that question is not clearly answered, because people don’t agree about who is in charge, it’s chaos down here on Earth.  The nations are engaged in a constant struggle to answer that basic question.

According to Matthew, one of the first things Jesus told His disciples after His resurrection was this:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18)

Think about the full meaning of those words.  His authority has no limit.  It extends even to the farthest reaches of Heaven!  And on Earth.  So then, why do we have such global strife?

Think about the movie, “Hoosiers.”  (If you haven’t watched it or can’t remember it, do it today!  That’s your assignment!)  After Gene Hackman takes over as the new coach, he has been given “all authority.”  Trouble is, the members of the team haven’t submitted yet to that authority.  And neither have many of the people in town.  But gradually, firmly, as the story progresses, his authority begins to be established – the authority he already had from the beginning by title.  Jesus has been given (by God the Father) “all authority.”  His authority is gradually being revealed and established, as more and more people have their eyes and hearts opened to it and submit to it.  That was always God’s plan of how to do it.  As He inspired David to write, 3000 years ago,

“The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” (Psalm 110:1-2)

But one day, there will no longer be anything gradual about how the full authority of Jesus is accomplished.  Don’t wait until that day to get it straight in your mind about Who is in charge.

Quotes:  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Don’t Just Stand There

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One of the most mysterious things about the Bible is how it all fits together.  If it had been written by one guy, and he was a genius, it would be amazing to see how the early books fit neatly into the later ones.  But when you understand it was written by more than 35 different authors, from several different cultures and spanning 1500 years, the symmetry and unity of the Bible’s writing is mind-boggling.  For example:

” Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.” (Matthew 12:38-41)

Admittedly, the story of Jonah is a head-scratcher.  You might read it (I suggest you do…) and wonder, “What is this all about and why is a story like this in the Bible?” But then, several hundred years after Jonah was written, Jesus shows that Jonah unknowingly and prophetically acted out a preview of the crucifixion!  The more you prowl around and ponder the Word, the more you discover that the writings are deliberate and intentional.

Amazing!  So is the point of both of those accounts: When God tries to get your attention, respond!

Quotes from: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Pay Attention

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When was the last time you saw a miracle?  Jesus performed many miracles during His time on earth, to make people aware of God’s presence and power.  He used miracles as “signs” to validate His own identity and message while pointing people to God.  He said,

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” (John 14:11)

He still performs miracles today and it is for the same purpose.  But some people are so distracted by the substance of the miracle – whether it is something as amazing as physical healing or something as simple as providing bread – that they miss the sign contained in it.  After miraculously feeding a huge gathering, Jesus warned them not to follow Him around to get more bread.  Miracles are done to open our eyes to the power of God!  Even physical healing, as wonderful as it is and as grateful as we are to receive it, is merely temporary.  You get healed of one thing only to die later on of something else!    Miracles are signs that point us to the presence and power of God.

Trouble is, many people cannot see miracles.  Perhaps miracles make them uneasy.  Their first response is to explain away what happened by trying to understand the physical explanation of how it occurred.  But the point in a miracle is not how it was done but rather, why it was done!  I am convinced that the reason we in the United States don’t see more miracles is because we have blinded ourselves to them.  We are so fixated on the  how that we miss the why.  Jesus reflected on that kind of blindness:

” At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Matthew 11:25)

Jesus didn’t want us to be childish, but childlike.  He wasn’t telling people to park their brains at the door but, rather, to open their eyes!  To recover their natural capacity for wonder and awe when confronted by the presence and power of God.  To look for why instead of smugly dismissing the miraculous with explanations of how.  Open your eyes!  Pay attention!

This is more important than you may realize.  Faced with the stony faced blindness of the “wise and learned,”  Jesus warned them:

“And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11:23-24)

More bearable for the people of Sodom, because they would have paid attention, they would have gotten the point.  They would have turned away from their arrogant, “know-it-all” attitudes, and responded to the power and majesty of God with humility and reverence.

God’s Name

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The bumper sticker said, “God is too big to fit into just one religion.”  Hmmmm…  If they meant that Jews and Christians worship the same God, okay, I agree with that.  But if they meant that all religions share the same God, then we got a problem – sloppy, illogical thinking.  If one person’s God says He has chosen a small tribe of people and will use them to extend blessing to the world, and another guy’s “god” says that that same tribe of people must be eradicated from the earth before his blessing can come, then those two guys are not hearing from the same God.

Because we humans cannot fully perceive or understand God, we have a tendency to define Him according to what we think He should be like.  We say things like, “If there is a God, then why do people starve?”  Questions like that presume that we have the capacity and the right to define God’s character.  We give God a make-over, according to our own preferences.  And we wind up with many different gods.

News flash: We are not in charge of Who God is.  He is.  When He called Moses to rescue the Israelites from slavery, Moses asked Him for some ID:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’  ”God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.  (Exodus 3:13-15)

What a perfect name: “I Am Who I Am; deal with it!”  Throughout the Bible, humans try to redefine the character of God and pretend that He is the way they want Him to be.  Tragic things ensue.  But God doesn’t change; He says, “My name (the essence of Who I am) is I AM WHO I AM.”

An acquaintance,  who is in recovery, talked about how, in AA meetings, everybody seems to have a personal “Higher Power,” each of them with different personalities.   Then he said, “But I am the lump of clay; I am the one who needs to be molded and changed, not God.”   My friend may have done some dumb things in the past, but he has discovered the beginning point for wisdom.  He knows Who God is: He is Who He Is.

You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”? (Is 29:16)
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”  (Proverbs 9:10)

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said they should start out by praying that the Name of their Heavenly Father would be held in high reverence.  Once you know God’s Name is I AM WHO I AM, everything else can fall into place.

Getting a Grip

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Grasping the enormity of God is impossible; He is too big, too much.  We do well to only get a small grip.  We know He exists; we just can’t wrap our mind around Him.  For a number of years, my response to the impossibility of fully knowing God was to tell myself (and everybody else) that there was no God.  I’d say, “I’m not going to believe in God unless I can fully understand Him.”  Then my seatmate on a plane said, “Buddy, if you can fully understand it, it isn’t God.”  Good point.  And, there are a lot of things we don’t fully understand (like, for me, how this blog thing works) and yet we know they exist and use them.

That guy’s remark helped me stop being such a skeptic, and dare to be a real skeptic in the original sense of the word.  “Skeptic” comes from the Greek word, skopos, which means to look deeply and carefully into something to ascertain the truth of it.   If you think about it, it’s much more exhilarating to look into things you do not understand fully.   That’s why it’s fun to watch a child learning about soap bubbles.  That’s why it’s exciting to swim with dolphins.  That’s what motivates scientists.  Probing what we do not fully  understand fills us with awe and wonder.

God exists.  He created everything, knows everything, has power over everything.  And for some reason we cannot fully understand, He loves you.  We cannot fully grasp God.  But get a grip on Him and let your heart be filled with wonder and awe.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.   Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)[1]

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Oh My God!!!

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“Papa, wake up!  You have to see this!”

I fought my way out of a dream and gradually put the world back together.  We were in a small cabin on the northern shores of Lake Michigan.  The last few embers of the evening’s fire were winking in the fireplace.  Must have been after midnight.  My daughter pulled at my sleeve and whispered, “Get Mom and come down to the lake, quickly!”

We stumbled down the darkened steps, gripping the handrail by the path and emerged out onto the rocky beach.  Stretched out above us were vast curtains of emerald green, flashing brightly and undulating as though moved by an unseen, powerful hand.  The stars were so vivid they glittered on the surface of the lake and yet they paled behind this spectacular display of Northern Lights.  My heart ached as I tried to absorb such incredible beauty.  It was so grand, so beyond explanation or description.  We hugged ourselves against the chill breeze and gaped, spellbound.  Just that day we had reveled in our mighty plans – swimming, sailing, hiking, cooking.  Now we knew we were impossibly small and powerless, irrelevant.

Maybe you remember the first time you saw pictures from the Hubble telescope of the vast expanses of space, the purplish clouds of stuff that turn out to be uncountable galaxies, each one of which would dwarf our Milky Way.  If you have never seen these, click this: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/galaxy/magellanic_cloud/pr2006055a/large_web/

Try to imagine how much bigger the universe is than the small slice of it you are seeing.  If our solar system was superimposed on that picture it would only be a tiny speck.  Stand on a midnight shore and look up into that picture.  Let your heart be still and stretch your imagination.  Try to “see” that deep, that far.

Now, read this:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Isaiah 40:21-22