The Suitcase

As I prayed today, I asked God’s forgiveness of my uppity thoughts about the wonderful things I’ve learned in His Word.  I forget sometimes where I was when He called me; plus the sins I’ve repented of through my years of my walk with Him.  Instead, I’m asking Him to help me deal with annoying church members that won’t listen to reason about God’s Word, and why it seems to take them so long to get it.  Funny (not really funny but sad), when I read the Bible for the first time, I thought the Israelites were so dumb for having God so profoundly speak and do miracles in their presence and then to continue in sin.  And now here I am, years later doing the same thing again about people around me.  What hypocrisy!  So as I began, “I asked God’s forgiveness of my uppity thoughts…”

As I prayed forgiveness, I had thoughts of me carrying a suitcase, proudly walking around with my suitcase.  But I never open it and change into the new items it contains.  Wearing the beautiful new items are the only worthy reason for even carrying the suitcase.  The new items are what allows me to better present myself to a world worn and weary with their old clothes of life.  Wearing the new items are what attracts the world to what’s in the suitcase.  Yes, there’s inconvenience of stopping and opening up the case and choosing from the items.  Then there’s the discarding of the old in order to put on the new.  But the change is well worth the effort and inconvenience goes up in smoke at the appearance of the new change.

Thanking and praising God for these elementary thoughts as I prayed and bowing to Him Who is so full of patience with His “dumb” sheep… (that is where I ended up in my prayer).  Who am I to stand in judgement over the sanctification of another sheep!?  I’m in process as well and while I may be ahead of where I was, I’m am never to think myself above anyone else in the body.  God is the only One knowing the inside of each of us.  I leave it to Him, once again…  just like the dumb Israelites.  

The Puddleglum View

 As believers in Jesus Christ, we grow to know His way is truly the way of wisdom and peace.  However, it takes us our whole life to totally rest in that.  I'm reading Job for the umpteenth time.  I can say, there is not a book of the Bible that I don't totally love to study.  Sometimes I go into the study apprehensive that I'll not enjoy certain books (I have my favorites).   But within a day, I'm hooked and looking forward to it each morning.  

Matthew Poole of one of the commentaries I use and this will be my second time to do Job with him.  Already, I'm finding new things to ponder and I'm just in chapter three.  For this post I am using verse 25: "For the thing I greatly fear has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come to me."  Many times throughout my life, I've heard this quote about hypochondriacs: "Well, So in So, is still enjoying poor health."  Hadn't thought about it in a long time but as I read Poole's comments about Job in verse 25, that quote came to mind.  And I'm also old enough to have heard conspiracy theories for many, many years about this and that, from food to war, and that also fits Poole's comment.  I call it the Puddleglum view of life, and Christians should not be exhibiting this kind of outlook!  

Poole writes: Job had never enjoyed solid and secure comfort. It's as though Job says,  'Even in the time of peace and prosperity, I was full of fears considering the variety of God's providences, the course and changeableness of this vain world, the infirmities and contingencies of human nature and life, God's justice and the sinfulness of all mankind.  And these fears of mine were not in vain but are justified by my present calamities. So that I have never enjoyed any sound tranquility since I was born, and therefore it hath not been worth my while to live, since all my days have been evil and full of vexation and torment either by my fear of miseries or the suffering of them.'

This rings true to me even though I may not express it outwardly.  I see my anxiety about life exactly as Job/Poole express it.  As I said at the beginning of this post, "it takes our whole life to totally rest..."  But, oh, how thankful I am to recognize myself as I study, instead of thinking it's for someone else.  I'm amazed at how God works in us in all our moments, to change us and continue the process of our sanctification.  And I'm extremely thankful, He uses us, warts, Puddlegluming and all. 

A Fulfilling Banquet

 In Isaiah 25:6, "the LORD of hosts prepares a lavish banquet for all people on this mountain."  As we celebrate the first day of the New Year, many of us are preparing food for family and friends.  We can definitely relate to the preparations of a "lavish banquet".  But God is here preparing a banquet like no other.  In verses 7-8, Isaiah continues this inspired writing with, "and on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations.  He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces.  And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken."

In Matthew Poole's commentary, he writes, "the covering or veil is the ignorance of God and of the true religion, which was then upon the Gentiles, and now upon the Jews.  It is a veil that covers men's eyes and keeps them from discernment...  This is a manifest prophecy concerning the illumination and conversion of the the Gentiles.  

In verse eight, "He will swallow up death for all time, Mr. Poole continues with, "The Messiah, who is God and Man, will swallow up death; shall by His death destroy yet the power of death and take away the sting of the first death, and prevent the second death and give eternal life to the world, even to all that believe in Him."  God will "in due time confer upon His people the victory that Christ has already purchased.  And He will take away from His people all suffering and sorrows, and all the causes of them, which is begun here and perfected in heaven."

This was my passage of scripture on this first day of the New Year.  What hope and confidence God's word gives us daily as we all face the trials of life.  Sometimes, we think we can't go on, but God is truly our refuge and strength.  And Mr. Poole continues verse eight with the reproach we receive as believers in Jesus Christ.  "The reproach and contempt which was (and is) daily cast upon His faithful people by the ungodly world..."  And then Isaiah adds at the end of verse 8, "The Lord has spoken it."  Mr. Poole closes on this verse with, "therefore, doubt not of it, though it seem incredible to you."  

What a wonderful challenge from God's Word to start our day and the New Year of 2026!  I can add nothing.  As Job says in 40:4, "I shut my mouth."  Let the wisdom and power of God's Word usher you, too, into a year full of hope and strength from God alone!  And let verse nine of this passage not end your day but begin your time with newness of heart and mind.

Isaiah 25:9: "And it will be said in that day, 'Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.  This is the LORD for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation."

The Forgotten Word

 Humility.  Do we know this word exits?  If so, do we know the meaning?  In looking it up for this post, I was struck by one definition that makes my case clear.  Unassertiveness!  Unassertiveness was defined as a person "not having or showing a confident and forceful personality."  Oh my!  I could just end right there and my point be made.  

As a new believer in Christ back in the mid-seventies, the pastor of the church I attended gave the following definition of "humility": power under control.  That is a far cry from the above dictionary definition.  But if you read the gospels, you will see that displayed by Jesus time and time again. One such demonstration was when He took the basin and towel and washed the disciples feet. (John 13) God, in the flesh, washed the nasty feet of lowly men.   Jesus, by His example, revealed the embodiment of humility in order to teach us, as believers how that looked.  

Last week, on Sunday, our pastor brought out that passage in all its revealing, raw and ugly evidence of our sin-embedded flesh.  We must see ourselves in light of Christ, in order to a ask Him for help each day in our sanctification.  We must know what we really are in order to lay at the throne of grace for continued help in this process.  Each day, we see the depth, and each day, He bestows His power to change us.  That is the freeing beauty of the release of the heavy chains of sin.  With that comes great rejoicing and new strength for the battle ahead until He brings us to Himself.

In his book, Call Unto Me, Charles Spurgeon entitles one of his sermons, "Humility the Friend of Prayer". He uses Genesis 32:10 as his reference.  Jacob, of whom God refers to over and over in scripture, is the subject of that passage.  And Spurgeon chides other pastors and teachers who decry Jacob as the scoundrel.  He writes, Jacob "was at times crafty, but God is not ashamed to be called his God" and "no fellow-believer has any right to be ashamed of Jacob.  He was a man full of energy, active, enduring, resolute, and hence his infirmities become more conspicuous than they would have been in a quieter and more restful nature...but he was a master of the art of prayer, and he that can pray well is a princely man."

Jacob's prayer in this passage is, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast shown Thy servant."  This is power under control.  And for all our pointing fingers at the sins of other believers, this is truly a display of the attitude of a man who knew he was needy and powerless without God.  And as Jesus washed those dirt-caked feet, that dirt from which God in His power made us, we must fall on our face before Him, in both adoration and pleading for the change that only He can create in us.

The Bible: My Politics

 “Should a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?  Amos 3:6

Newton writes, “The Bible is my system of politics.  There I read, that the Lord reigns; that He doth what He pleaseth in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; that no wisdom, understanding, counsel, or power, can prevail without His blessing; that as righteousness exalts a nation, so sin is the reproach, and will even totally be the ruin of any people.  From these, and other maxims of a like import, I am learning to be still, and to know that He is God.”

He continues, “In order to estimate the state of the nation, we must attend to two views, which,  when contrasted, illustrate each other, and, in their combination, constitute our national character, and discriminate it not only from that of every nation around us, but from all the kingdoms recorded in the history of past ages. I mean our national privileges, and our national sins.

If God gives up a people to the way of their own hearts, they will, they must, perish.  When a general corruption of morals takes place, when private interests extinguishes all sense of public virtue, when a profligate and venal spirit has infected every rank and order of the state, when presumptuous security and dissipation increase in proportion as danger approaches, when, after repeated disappointments, contempt of God, and vain confidence in imagined resources of their own, grow bolder and stronger, then there is reason to fear that the sentence is already gone forth, and that the execution of it is at hand.”

God be with us and hear our prayers for His glory.  Pray for the enlightenment of a dark nation.

Trifle Not!

Miller Ferrie compiled a wonderful devotion book of John Newton’s writings, Jewels from John Newton.  On July 16th through July 22nd, the theme of Newton’s writings is “The Guilt and Danger of Such a Nation as This”. (Interesting that the dates ran partly with the RNC) What comfort to know there is truly nothing new under the sun.  It’s just new for us.  And for believers in Jesus Christ, not only new, but increasingly abhorrent!  Apparently, Mr. Newton felt the same.

Using the passage out of Jeremiah 5:29, God asks the prophet: “Shall I not visit for these things?  Shall I not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”  Newton writes: “The Lord, the Governor of the earth, has provided, in the history of one nation, a lesson of instruction and warning to every nation under the sun.”  That nation was Israel.  God had blessed them, led them out of slavery, protected them, fed them, though they often sinned against Him.  

Newton’s nation, though different from mine, is like Israel and all other nations through history.  He writes, “We are a highly favoured people, and have long enjoyed privileges which excite the admiration and envy of surrounding nations: and we are a sinful, ungrateful people; so that, when we compare the blessings and mercies we have received form the Lord, with our conduct towards Him, it is to be feared we are no less concerned with the question in my text than Israel of old.”

How about the United States?  Are we indeed one nation under God or is that no longer a passion but a trivial phrase that has no meaning.  Charles Spurgeon writes, “Alas, I know men and women who trifle with their souls, and with heaven and hell, and eternity; they trifle with God Himself!…Half the councils of our senators and the debates of our parliaments are worse than child’s play… Big children are worse triflers than the little ones can ever be.  Despise not the children for trifling when the whole world is given to folly.”

More to come…

 

The King of All the Earth

 From Psalm 47 we read: "Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.  How awesome is the LORD Most High, the great King over all the earth!...For God is the King of all the earth...God reigns over the nations; God is seated on His Holy Throne...the kings of the earth belong to God.  He is greatly exalted."  The clapping and the shouting with cries of joy in this passage comes in the middle of sounding trumpets.  And then the passage tells those who "sincerely" love Him, "Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises...sing to Him a Psalm of praise."

This passage and so many others should and must keep His people bowing at His throne with the prayer, "How awesome is the LORD Most High!"  We don't really understand how majestically and profoundly God reigns over ALL the earth if we have fear of the future, whether that is a fear that comes from poor health or the health of those we love or the health of our government and great nation.  One nation under God, whether people want to leave out that phrase or not, is true.  And one day, everyone living and dead will know that truth.  

"What is truth?"  Even Pilate asked Jesus that question when He was on trial before him.  By the looks of the leaders, whom supposedly represent the people, their truth is already established.  My five minutes a night of the RNC blared out expressly what they view truth to be.  It made me sad more than made me mad.  The truth, as told us by Jesus, is that "He is the Way, the Truth and the Life".  How can we know more?  By seeking God in the only information book He gave us: The Bible.  Everything for life and godliness is in that Book.  Everything for putting to order the disorder of our time is in that Book.  But man's rebel nature keeps them from wanting to submit to that Truth.  

Pilate also asked Jesus, "So, you are a king?"  Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king.  For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."  Are we listening?  Christians, people who love God and live to represent him through personal holiness, cannot dread, fret or fear.  This is not new.  The next few posts after this come from a man who lived from 1725 to 1807.  He, too, saw what we are seeing in his own nation.  But in conclusion for today, I'll quote from a king who learned lessons the hard way, "there is nothing new under the sun."