Thanks / James 1:1-25

“Our generous God…” Generous with His wisdom and His blessings. “Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father.” All of creation, salvation through Christ – all ours from our generous Father.

Our generous loving God, who allows trouble and trials and allows us to suffer and struggle.

Why, Lord?

James offers this: “When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” Excuse me? Is James like the “friend” who reminds you in your crisis that, “Someday you’ll laugh at this…”?

No. Not if we think about what “joy” really is. Joy is not the same as “happiness.” Joy rises above circumstances, lifting our gaze from the pit of life to look into the face of the One who cares for us. The One who invites us to give our troubles to Him.

Joy helps us to see that in all our troubles God is working in us, transforming us into the people He wants us to be. The choice is ours. We can grumble and rebel, refusing the growth, or we can accept and pray and receive the “blessing,” trusting God to make something good out of it all.

We can pray, echoing James, to our Generous Father, who with the trials will also supply everything we need, not just to endure, but to grow.

We can thank Him that it is in our struggles that Christ is born anew in us.

Lord, provide all I need for the troubles of today. Lift my eyes to You today...

I'll Never Leave

As usual, there are lots of important reminders as this letter comes to a close. One of the most precious promises offered to us is that God will never fail us and never abandon us. I've memorized that promise, but I often forget what it's tied to at the beginning of the verse. How about you? Verse 5 says, "Don't love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, 'I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.'"

There are few things that cause us to feel insecure and uncertain in life quite as easily and thoroughly as financial matters. Regardless of the plans we have or the good intentions we have of trusting God with our finances (or despite our finances), surprise car repairs, medical bills, etc. challenge our resolve almost constantly. But here God promises to be present in every stressful situation with us. In verse 6, he takes it beyond money matters and declares, "So we can say with confidence, 'The LORD is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?'"

A friend of mine was telling me that this week is the first anniversary of a nasty flood that caused her family to have to evacuate their home and caused a lot of damage. She still has so many questions about why it happened, and fears about whether it might happen again. But she finds peace in knowing that God was present in the flood. He is here with us in the midst of all our circumstances, ready to care for us, ready to carry us, providing for us (sometimes in ways that we don't notice), and ready to teach us more about His Kingdom.

What challenge are you facing today? Of what are you fearful? Have you been feeling alone? Does it seem like God is silent? In the midst of the uncertainties of life on earth, in the midst of the fears we face, in the midst of our confusion about what God is trying to teach us or accomplish in our lives, we can be confident of this: God is present; He is with us, and He will never abandon us or fail us. We long to understand what's happening to us. But sometimes a better question for us to ask than, "Why is this happening?" is "Where is God in this?" And as we wrestle with the answer, let us be confident that He is indeed with us in whatever it is.

Come to Mount Zion

Hebrews 12:14-29

I've been thinking about times when I have been taken for granted,
times I didn't feel appreciated. These memories came unbidden as I
pondered today's passage:
First, the physical mountain where the Lord met with Moses, a
foreshadowing of the heavenly Jerusalem. Then, "You have come to the
assembly of God's firstborn children" – we who have become heirs
together with Christ.

The Israelites near Mount Sinai experienced something so terrifying
they could not bear it. The Lord was not Someone to take for granted.

Jesus, our great High Priest, has made possible unlimited access to the
Father. We are now invited to draw near to God. To a joyful gathering
of angels and saints. To a sovereign who is majestic in his holiness.
And, I believe, no less awesome than the voice heard that day in the
Sinai desert.

Enter boldly (Hebrews 10:19) into his presence. Confidently.
Purposefully. Yet neither presumptuously nor haphazardly. Not taking
him for granted. Not like Esau. We are told in Genesis 25 how Esau
traded his birthright for a meal of bread and lentil stew. "Thus Esau
despised his birthright" – his inheritance, especially the covenant
promises God had given to Abraham.

Thus, we are reminded to cherish the inheritance that is ours through
the blood of Jesus. We may need to guard against a casual attitude
toward the things of God – toward worship. Be grateful for the new
covenant which is ours. Count as precious our times of fellowship with
God. And may our love for him inspire holy living.

Together, we look forward to the time when earth and heaven will be
shaken and all be made perfect.

Deetje Wildes

Don't Give Up

Wow!  What a price they paid to be true to God.  Wow!  Do I realize that my commitment to the Lord should be total and complete too?  Do I really want to be fully committed to the Lord…in each situation and circumstance, regardless of the cost to me?  In verse 35 we are told, “They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.”  So must I!  In verse 39 & 40 we are told that God has “something better” for His people.  As you think of heaven and life beyond this world, do you have that strong feeling that we should be more thankful than we are for what God has planned for us? 

As we consider those who have “gone before us” in the faith, our call is to run “the race that God has set before us”.  We can do better, can’t we?  The Lord Jesus looked ahead to the joy awaiting Him...and so should we!  Don’t become weary as you live your Christian life.  Don’t give up!  Discipline – ouch!  Who wants that?  Yet we all need it don’t we?  Verses 12 & 13 – Good verses to read more than once. 

Lord, help me to be stronger in my faith and in my trust in You.  May I lean heavily on Your power and grace to live as I ought to live.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

 

Donald E. Pardun

 

Me of Little Faith

Hebrews 11:17-31

The portion of Hebrews which I've heard referred to as "The Faith Hall of Fame" continues in today's reading. Here we get a recitation of the faithful from Abraham down through the return to Canaan.

Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac is one of those moments in scripture I find particularly distressing. God had given a promise that Abraham's many descendants would come through his son Isaac. . .

. . . and then God asked Abraham to kill his son. (Genesis 22)

The kind of faith that would follow through on this command is so extreme it should be made into a Mountain Dew commercial. I know I couldn't do it, and would probably presume insanity on the part of anyone who said he could. (And I would contact child protective services immediately.) I don't think I have even a mustard's seed of faith to carry out something like this. If it were me God were testing, I would fail. But when you read the account in Genesis, you can see that Abraham had confidence that everything would turn out all right. As he leaves to go make God's commanded sacrifice, he tells his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Genesis 22:5) So Abraham trusted that God would deliver the boy somehow, and I guess that's what faith is.

Isaac, Jacob, Joseph . . . by faith these men expressed a confidence that God would continue to bless Israel, and Israel became a nation enslaved. It must have seemed like an ironic joke to the people of Israel. God promised a future, and the future looked doubtful (which also sums up Abraham's obedience to sacrificing Isaac). When in deep despair, having confidence in the promises of God takes an act of faith, because in despair it's so easy to doubt.

I find it interesting that the writer of Hebrews skips from Moses and the exodus from Egypt right to Joshua and the entrance to Canaan. He seems to have forgotten about forty years of wandering in the wilderness -- a time when one might expect faith to be a daily requirement. In fact, it was during this time that God practically eliminated the need for faith.

Writer Philip Yancey addresses this contrast in his book Disappointment With God. He notes that during the time in the wilderness, God was a very real presence. He was a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. He fed the people with the miracle of manna from heaven. He came down to Mount Sinai in a cloud of thunder and lightning, freaking out everyone so much that they asked that God not speak to them directly for fear they might die. And Moses went up to talk with God and became so radiant that the Israelites couldn't even look at him and made him wear a veil.

And then God handed down a set of rules that covered the complete range of human behavior so that there would really be no question from the people what they were to do.

Yancey writes:

[T]he very clarity of God's will had a stunting effect on the Israelites' faith. Why pursue God when he had already revealed himself so clearly? Why step out in faith when God had already guaranteed the results? Why wrestle with the dilemma of conflicting choices when God had already resolved the dilemma? In short, why should the Israelites act like adults when they could act like children? And act like children they did, grumbling against their leaders, cheating on the strict rules governing manna, whining about every food or water shortage.

As I studied the story of the Israelites, I had second thoughts about crystal-clear guidance. It may serve some purpose -- it may, for example, get a mob of just-freed slaves across a hostile desert -- but it does not seem to encourage spiritual development. In fact, for the Israelites it nearly eliminated the need for faith at all; clear guidance sucked away freedom, making every choice a matter of obedience rather than faith. And in forty years of wilderness wanderings, the Israelites flunked the obedience test so badly that God was forced to start over with a new generation.

Is this what faith is for? For spiritual development? Ironically (or maybe not), a reliance on faith brings with it the possibility of doubt. But God provided the Israelites every proof they'd ever need -- it's hard to imagine any atheists among the Israelites -- and they screwed up repeatedly. So where does this leave us?

The kind of faith that Abraham demonstrated when commanded to sacrifice his son -- this is an unfathomable miracle to me. (And, I admit, a little frightening.) The faith I need to make it through each day seems simple in comparison, and I am a miraculous failure at it.

If faith is such a necessary ingredient to a relationship with God, then I guess I'll risk the doubt, trusting that God expected and planned for that, too. I suppose that's also an act of faith, and while I don't imagine I'll ever get into the Faith Hall of Fame, I need the hope and assurance that faith brings. I need it every day, guiding me like a pillar of cloud or fire.

-- Drew Clausen

And the Second Greatest of These...

Hebrews 11:1-16

Here today we encounter the great faith 'continental divide' of the letter to the Hebrews. The first ten chapters have reveled in the superiority of Jesus above all angels & patriarchs & priests. He has been presented as the better covenant, sanctuary, & sacrifice. Now these last three chapters seem to ask of us, "So how will you respond to this Jesus?".

And to prime us for this question, the extraordinary model of old testament saints looking forward to promise is held out for us. But two provocative claims arrest my attention before entering the corridors of the faith hall of fame lined with such personalities as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah.

The second of these is the claim of verse 3,
By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

In other words, even before the patriarchs' faith is held up for admiration, the creation story is held out to us as the first repository of faith. I won't try to untangle much of the ongoing debate over the relationship of faith and scientific discovery in understanding creation. But, we ought not miss at least this simple assertion in verse 3: it necessarily will require faith to grasp understanding of a creation whose Genesis of formation rests with "God's command". It necessarily will require faith acceptance that all "natural" that can be seen ultimately comes from His unseen Word. There is no microscope large enough to put God beneath. At some point, at some time, all will bow confessing that creation entirely belongs to God.

But the first marvel to me is in the first verse of the chapter, and is something I have never noticed in scores of reading it before.
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen...

Here is what I notice: the great Apostle told us at the end of his I Corinthian 13 'love chapter' that, Three things will last forever - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love. But here, in Hebrews 11:1, I believe I hear today that "the second greatest of these is faith". Hope is an extraordinary thing. I couldn't face a morning without hope. Life is despair without hope.

But, faith is hope's improvement. Perhaps any human being possesses some measure of hope, but it is faith - faith in this better Jesus we have been hearing about for ten chapters - that gives us the bedrock confidence that God's promises we hope for will actually happen. When our eyes are turned in faith to this Jesus, His love, His sacrifice for us -- in that focus, that resting, all my hope is given confidence. Does some part of life seem hopeless? God give us faith to believe Jesus.

-Pastor Paul

HOLD ON!

Hebrews 10:19-39

 

 

Hebrews is a masterful study in encouragement.  The writer ached for Hebrew believers to remain faithful and obedient -- to "run with endurance the race set before" them.  So he encouraged them by intensifying their understanding of the new covenant, by giving them both positive and negative examples of faithfulness, and by warning them of the terrible consequences of turning away.

 

These Hebrew believers stood on a two thousand year old devotion to the Mosaic covenant.  Time and again, the writer illustrates how the new covenant is even richer, deeper, and stronger than the Mosaic covenant.  This is how he helps the believers to better understand "how great a salvation" they have -- and why they should keep their courage, remain confident in their hope, stay faithful to the end, hold firmly to what they believe, hold to the hope, eagerly wait, hold tightly without wavering, grip, strengthen and mark out a straight path.

 

The believers are reminded of those who have gone before.  Some were unfaithful and disobedient, but many others were faithful to the end.  All these people are encouraging to think about.  But the greatest encouragement comes from considering Jesus, who was made like them in every way.  He also had to live through suffering and testing.  He also had to learn obedience from the things he suffered.  He also tasted death.

 

Finally, the believers are encouraged by solemn warnings not to drift away, turn away or throw away.  The writer dwells much more on hope than judgment.  But he doesn't fail to remind his readers that God has judged in the past and will judge in the future.  As a result of all these truths, the Hebrew Christians should be careful that they do not refuse to listen.  They should not harden their hearts.  They should not ignore this great salvation.

 

Although we aren't Hebrew believers, we share their great salvation, we share the examples of faithfulness and faithlessness, we share the empathy of our savior, we share the need to be warned. 

 

Let us all be encouraged to run with endurance.