Month: July 2011

Regular Miracles

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“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years.” – Leviticus 25:18-21 (ESV)

God clearly directed His people to acknowledge Him as the Provider and to allow the land to rest every seventh year. Though an agricultural people – depending on the field and the vine for sustenance – the Israelites were to cease from sowing and pruning every seven years (Leviticus 25:1-5). The continual cycle of six years of work followed by one year of rest demonstrated at the most basic level of life that God’s will is the number one priority.

Knowing some of the Israelites would ask the same question I would ask, God preempts their doubt with this stunning statement, “And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives” (Leviticus 25:20-22, ESV). Yes, God knew many of His people would question the practicality of the plan. How would they have enough to eat if no planting or harvesting happens for an entire twelve months? (Remember, the Israelites had no Wal-Mart!) The resounding answer comes back, “God is both the Giver of the harvest and the Grower of the crops.”

Living for the Lord is not for the faint of heart – for those who do not grasp God’s sovereignty over the very essence of reality. Psalm 24:1 (ESV) comes to mind, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” If we believe this basic premise of God’s rightful ownership of all creation, the corollary follows that He can, therefore, dictate creation’s path. In other words, the Lord is fully able to require the land to yield three years of crop for one year of planting. He made the earth, and He sustains it. The land must follow the voice of God.

The question becomes, “Why?” Why would God require the land to yield a supernatural crop in the sixth year? Why would He faithfully provide sustenance during a season when no sowing occurred? This continual, rhythmic cycle of provision for the seventh year took place because of the continual, rhythmic obedience of those who love God. Leviticus 25:18 (ESV) makes clear, “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely.”

God reveals to us a right and productive way to operate. He knows “the land” best. He knows our lives best. He understands the way things ought to function. Moreover, He has the power to interject regular miracles into the flow of life. With obedience comes the consistent provision of God. As we trust the Lord enough to obey Him – even when it does not appear to make sense – God persistently offers His miraculous intervention in the daily stuff of our lives. To the Israelites, food and drink were basic and necessary (as they are with us!) The Lord consistently provided – even in the seventh year following a season without planting. The rational man without belief in God cannot see how this would naturally happen. However, the man of faith and rationality who trusts in God can see this as a reaction of God to His child’s obedience. God moves heaven and earth for His people!

We may not always realize this rather rhythmic provision, but the Lord is giving us breath, food, love, sanity, and hope. Even in the Old Testament, God promises consistent miracles with consistent obedience. Can you imagine His provision fully realized in Jesus Christ? I am given opportunity to be God’s child through Jesus, and I am given the strength to obey by His Spirit. Let us seek to regularly obey and regularly watch God work supernaturally!

The Cup and this Pitiful Creature

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After sharing the Passover meal, Jesus instituted with His disciples the Lord’s Supper. Toward the end of that event – after sharing the cup – Jesus proclaimed, “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29, ESV). The following poem is based on that profound and comforting statement of Jesus Christ.

Your promise to them
Is Your promise to me;
We will dine together
When my sorrow does flee.

Though burdened so greatly
With the task just ahead,
You demonstrated by simple cup
I have nothing to dread.

The fruit of the vine
You drank on that day
Is a weighty reminder –
God gets His way.

For though you would leave
Soon after the cup,
You said you’d come back
As I keep looking up.

And Your loving heart realized
What I needed to know:
This special communion
Would not end, but grow.

So as you started down
Your dark road to Calvary,
You spoke words I treasure
In the deepest part of me:

“I won’t drink again
Of this fruit of the vine
Until the day we sup together
And your hand is in mine.”

Jesus, how I love you
For saving the purest wine
For the day without suffering
When together we dine.

In the Father’s kingdom
So exceeding mortal comprehension,
We will talk and share together
When of sin there is no mention.

Surely we will have joy and life
And eating and friendship beyond the veil,
For your promises are true
And your plan can never fail.

The banquet of the Messiah;
How I long for that day!
When I will get to hug you
For the life you gave away.

Why are you waiting
To drink again the cup with me?
Oh, how special to you, Jesus,
This pitiful creature must be!

The Operative Word

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Christian, do you pray as much as you should? Are there situations left untouched and quandaries floating about because you refuse to pray as God desires? Prayer is necessary. God works mightily through prayer. For the child of God, prayer is not an option or a task resorted to when things look bleak. Prayer is powerful, delivering answers derived in a world currently unseen to us.

Luke, the disciple, was a physician in his day. He clearly understood, however, that health of spirit, emotion, and body comes ultimately through God. In Luke 18:1 (NASB), he instructs, “Now [Jesus] was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.” Luke reminds us that God is unequivocal in His demand that we pray. In a culture of “quick fixes,” shallow relationships, and mitigated perseverance; God desires that we press into His heart by prayer. How does that sit with you? Does your heart respond, “Yes! I know the experience and wonder of pouring myself into prayer!” Or, does your heart answer, “No. I am not there. My prayer life is quite flat, and I realize my need to heed the call.”

The apostle James proclaims in James 5:16 (NASB), “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” The Greek root here behind the words effective and accomplish is a word that means “to be operative.” It is the same Greek root behind the word works in this glorious verse, “Also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11, NASB). Imagine, the power of God working in our prayer life is related to the power of God working everything in the universe for His purpose! When we truly pour ourselves into seeking and petitioning our Lord, God operates on our behalf. He accomplishes things. No longer dormant lie the possibilities. Prayer is the “operative word”!

Unique about prayer is the inherent relationship between the physical and spiritual realms. When I speak to God with my voice (using the physical body and brain He has given me), I am functioning in the spiritual realm with God. He, in turn, may produce results back in the physical world. It is the intersection of Heaven and Earth, if you will. Prayer is the place where we are instructed to lay hold of heavenly things and blessed to see outcomes of both a spiritual and material nature.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego prayed to God in Heaven, and God answered by protecting their physical bodies from seemingly inevitable consumption by fire. Prayer wrought tangible results. Of course! This is God’s will – that His children pray! Do you set aside with marked intention minutes and hours of your days for intense seeking of your God? Is your heart rising to Him on a regular, deliberate, and serious basis? Is He hearing you petitions? There is not shortcut to the effects only prayer can bring. It is God’s will. We must pray.

Mark Your Calendars for our Fall Event!

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We are excited to announce that Hope & Passion Ministries will be having a big, interdenominational event for both men and women this fall! Anxiety Undone will happen Saturday evening, November 12 at the Greensburg Alliance Church of Greensburg, PA.

Mark your calendars! We planned a location so that many of our friends and stakeholders from churches all over the area may arrive easily (and even find a local hotel if necessary).

We ask you to be in prayer for the event which will touch many lives through the power of God’s Word. Anxiety is an issue we struggle with in a fast-paced, high-tech, excessive, and lonely culture amidst the backdrop of global unrest and financial concerns. However, our God is able to relieve our hearts and minds, and really and ultimately undo anxiety for us! Shelli is seeking God’s heart for this powerful message.

Details will follow. Contact us for more information!

What if the Sun Went Dark?

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We count on the rising of the sun. We take for granted that the moon will shine at night. We expect the stars to stay in place, twinkling through the darkness. Though humans may never ponder exactly why we hold these assumptions, the clear answer is the created order of our God. The Creator “gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night . . . the LORD of hosts is his name” (Jeremiah 31:35, ESV). Yes, He is the Lord of hosts! He is the Master of that which goes forth, including angelic beings and heavenly bodies.

Precisely because the order of the heavens is so regular and very much taken for granted, the words of Matthew 24:29 (ESV) ring forebodingly in our ears, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Imagine it. Whether we take these words of Jesus literally, figuratively, or as a combination of the two, Christ means for us to know that He is going to shake things up in a way as never before. The natural ordinances on which we had depended will suddenly evaporate, as God Almighty displays His power for judgment, accountability, and newness. The Boss of the sun and stars will demand the heavenly bodies change their course and usher in a cataclysmic shift to a new order. As radically as Jesus Christ can make a person’s spirit new by the power of His blood, so will he radically recreate the cosmos.

Make no mistake about it; the beginning of the miraculous change is marked by fundamental, unexpected feats and by a judgment that will shock unbelievers at their core. Matthew 24:30 (ESV) goes on to instruct, “Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Notice the word “mourn.” People from every part of the earth will wail as they realize – once and for all – that Jesus changes everything. Sadly, unbelievers will then know that God will be recognized for who He is, whether willingly in the present, or by mandate in the future. All the world will ultimately realize what believers now know – Jesus is in charge!

On that day, the clouds of heaven will not float peacefully against a blue sky. Rather, the clouds will escort the very Son of Man to the earth He has created. With power and glory untold, Jesus will begin the necessary task of judging wrong and rewarding right. He will return to do what He has promised – deliver His people from a twisted existence to enjoy Him forever.

Are you ready for the essential, inexplicable change about to occur in the heavens? When you see Jesus, will you grieve because you have not responded to His forgiveness, or will you rejoice in that power and great glory which will materialize just as He promised?

The shakeup is coming. The next time you stand in the light of that old sun, or dream upon a star, or delight in the moon’s glow; think about the words of Jesus Christ. He means what He says.

Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

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“All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.” – Proverbs 16:2, ESV

Dependence on God goes far deeper than trusting Him for physical sustenance. Dependence on God is continual and necessary at the level of the unseen motives of the heart. We mortals are inclined to think we are doing right when, in fact, we may be wrongly motivated. Made in the image of God, but seriously falling short of His glory (Romans 6:23), humans depend on God to weigh the spirit within.

Our eyes can be funny things. They can deceive us into thinking that a particular selection is good simply because of its “appropriate” appearance. Recall the Lord instructing Samuel when the priest was tempted to choose the strongest looking brother in David’s family, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (I Samuel 16:7, ESV). Recall Eve in the Garden of Eden on the brink of rebelling against God, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, . . . she took of its fruit and ate, . . .” (Genesis 3:6, ESV). In both historical accounts, a person’s eyes saw something that the heart interpreted as good. However, what was seen needed to be filtered by the Lord. Whether the man looked tall and strong or the fruit looked delightful was not the real issue. The vital component was the Lord’s view of the choices. As Proverbs 16:2 proclaims, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.”

Recently I had to reject some options that mere eyes may view as good and prosperous. However, God made clear to me that what “looked right” was not His will. For many years, I have prayed for God to weigh the motivations of my heart. I have asked Him to never let me be led astray – even sincerely so. Though we fail Him, He will be faithful to show us the “measurement” of our spirit after He carefully weighs our motivations. At that moment, we must make a critical decision to abide by God’s assessment rather than what at first appears pure to our eyes.

Please take time today to pray this Proverb. We ought to request that God weigh our spirit and show us the truth beyond what the eyes observe at first glance. Quite purposefully, God’s admonition to check our heart before responding with our eyes is followed directly by a favorite verse of many Christians, “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3, ESV). The first step in committing any plan to the LORD is to be sure it is His plan. What our physical or emotional eyes may see notwithstanding, it is God’s will that matters. He establishes our plans when we trust Him above our own – often failing – instinct. We are not animals living solely by our inclinations, we are God’s image-bearers, living by His direction, for which we plead each step of the way.

Dear Lord, please get out the scale and weigh my spirit!

Leaving Space

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“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.” – Leviticus 19:9-10 (ESV)

Leave a margin. Do not hold on with a tight fist to every last bit of resource. Strive to give room for the needs of others. Do not depend on every last minute of time or ounce of strength just to make it through the day. God would have us live in such a way that others can glean from the surplus of our lives.

Even in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, we see clearly the heart of God. The biblical principle behind this command given to an agricultural people 3,500 years ago is timeless. The Lord made clear that when His people harvested their own crops, they were to leave the edges or the corners for the poor and the sojourners. In other words, His people should insure that a margin of their intake was available to those who needed food due to poverty or lack of residency. One implication is clear: the Israelite family should be able to live on the main portion of the harvest, without having to cling to the edges of it.

Similarly, our God’s desire is that we thrive beneath our means if possible – on less than we need financially, physically, emotionally, and in regards to time. When we are able to function on just a portion of the harvest, we are joyfully able to contribute to the well-being of others. In all societies, poor people and sojourners will exist; God wants His people to be part of the provision for them. In the same way, people deficient in hope and those wandering in emotional deserts exist with us always. God’s will is that His people are living in such a way as that we can give to them.

The question becomes, “Have I stripped my vineyard bare?” Is there currently no room in my life to give to the spiritual, emotional, or physical needs of others? Have I given in to the cultural lie that grabbing everything I possibly can for myself is a critical element in the pursuit of “happiness”? Perhaps we do not need to be involved in every activity or have all the latest gadgets. Perhaps we should leave grapes in our vineyard for others. Do I have strength to concentrate and hear the hurts of others? Do I have the emotional resources to stretch beyond my own needs? Do I have money with which to bless someone for whom a blessing will demonstrate the love of Christ?

Crystal clear is the reason behind God’s directive of margin: “I am the LORD your God.” Let us make absolutely sure we understand this precept – God is the only reason I have anything. Providing a portion of my crop for others reminds me that whatever I possess comes from God through grace. The book of Exodus precedes Leviticus, and God proclaimed in Exodus 6:8 (ESV), “I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.” Here we realize that our possessions are really God’s possessions, granted to us by an all-powerful God of grace. When I share of my joy, my physical presence, my wisdom, or my money, I am only sharing what ultimately belongs to God. He kindly allows us to manage these belongings for the glory of His name and the growth of His kingdom. When I have “room to give,” God is exalted and I am blessed because I am following His design for life.

Inherent also in God’s directive for margin is the recognition – even under the Old Testament law – that people will be needy in a world currently operating in anticipation of God’s future redemption of all things. This cosmos simply is not right. At times, we will harvest a crop, and at times we will need someone’s crop shared with us. Our loving God understands this, and He is not ashamed to require His people to be givers; for that is what He is! God is the greatest Giver! When we are called to create a buffer of resources, time, and energy for others; we ought to recall the sacrifice of God. Owing to no one – and answering to not a soul – God gave His own Son for our redemption and future inheritance of all the unimaginable wonder of Heaven.

Wonderfully, we recall that Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David and ancestor of Jesus Christ, was a woman who benefitted from the margin of a good man named Boaz (Ruth 2:2-3). Imagine, Ruth is in the lineage of Jesus, and she found provision because of the righteous perimeters of another person.

God asks us to leave space so that we may help others. Since both the core and the margin of all we have come from Him, freely giving the edges makes sense.

Close to His Heart

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Have you realized that your God is not a God of religion, but of relationship? He knows you not only need to comprehend His truth, but you desire also to feel His heart. Though at times we may not sense His presence, God is holding us through all seasons. Often – if we are honestly focused on Him – God will bless us with an acute recognition of His nearness and care.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed this simple truth in Isaiah 40:11 (NIV): “[God] gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart.” Take a moment to process the thought that God “carries you close to His heart.” The God who placed our solar system in the Milky Way Galaxy and upholds the universe by His Word is the One who by His own arms presses us in until we rest in the safety of His embrace. We are close enough to hear His heartbeat, and a deeply-rooted calm washes over us.

We must cease striving for the sake of effort and allow God to gather us in His arms. The Lord who carries us close to His heart is not a God who is pleased with obligatory, religious exertion. He wants us to love Him because He loves us. He wants us to listen to His heart and be consoled by Him in a world of distress.

Weakened, disillusioned, and injured lambs need lifted up to the heart of the Shepherd. Peace will come when we little lambs gaze into the eyes of our God and adore Him for who He truly is. His arms are strong enough to hold the weightiest of burdened souls. His arms are nimble enough to snatch from harm those of us in the most precarious of situations. His arms are long enough to reach the most wayward among us.

The goal of his outstretched arms in every case is an intimate relationship. He loves us. He wants us to know Him. Let Him lift you close, and then listen for His heartbeat.