The Ability to Withstand God’s Presence

This is the third time around for this material, but I’m repeating it because (a) we have new readers, and (b) there’s so much scripture in this it definitely bears repeating. This first appeared in 2013 and then in 2017.

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No One Can See God And Live

Occasionally I will read or hear conjecture as to what a “glorified body” will consist of when we leave this life and begin life in a New Earth governed by a new order. People speak of being able to transport instantly from one location to another in a manner reminiscent of Star Trek’s “beam me up.” Others wonder about food consumption, since scripture mentions a “marriage supper.” One discussion centered on clothing, because in God’s original order in the garden, the man and his wife were naked. (The conclusion was that yes, we will be, but our minds will be changed so we won’t think of it the same way.)

But I think the biggest change that will occur in those bodies will be that we will be able to withstand seeing God; we will be able to contain the impact of His presence. Have you ever heard that phrase, “No one can see God and live”? Where does that come from?

The reference is from Exodus 33:20. Here’s the story of a direct conversation — not a vision or dream — in context from the NLT with the key verse underlined:

Moses Sees the Lord’s Glory

12One day Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Take these people up to the Promised Land.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. You have told me, ‘I know you by name, and I look favorably on you.’ 13If it is true that you look favorably on me, let me know your ways so I may understand you more fully and continue to enjoy your favor. And remember that this nation is your very own people.”

14The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.”

15Then Moses said, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. 16How will anyone know that you look favorably on me—on me and on your people—if you don’t go with us? For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the earth.”

17The Lord replied to Moses, “I will indeed do what you have asked, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.”

18Moses responded, “Then show me your glorious presence.”

19The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh,c before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose. 20But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.” 21The Lord continued, “Look, stand near me on this rock. 22As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will remove my hand and let you see me from behind. But my face will not be seen.”

(whole chapter)

This is reinforced in the New Testament:

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

and

John 6:46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.

and

1 Timothy 6:16 12Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.13I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate,14that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,15which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,16who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.

(A parallel to that last passage is something familiar if you’ve sung the chorus How Great is Our God: Psalm 104:2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent. )

That doesn’t mean that some have not come close. We know that just a chapter later, when Moses received the “big ten” his face shone when he came down from the market.

The Radiant Face of Moses

29When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. 30When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.

33When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.

This is confirmed in II Cor. 3:7 (ESV)

7Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

This is also reminiscent of the familiar passage in Isaiah 6:

1It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3They were calling out to each other,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

4Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.

5Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

Finally, we can’t begin to scratch the surface of this topic without considering the transfiguration in Matthew 17:

1After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Be sure to see also Revelation 10:1

Today’s reading was prepared using the online site, Bible Hub.

 

Problems, Pain and Heartache

This is our third time with Rolain Peterson in Zimbabwe and his blog called Kingspeech. Two of his recent blog posts were related, the first is presented below in full, the second was originally Christmas-themed, but there was some content related to the other article that we felt fit perfectly and we slightly edited it for year-round application. Better yet, click the blog’s link above or the titles linked below and read these where they first appeared.

Big Problems, Bigger God!

There will always be giants to fight, trials and difficult times that come our way but we must always remember that no matter how big the giants are, or how threatening the trials and problems seem, that God is bigger than ALL the problems we face.

In the midst of the problems you face remember that God is bigger.

There is NO problem that you are facing right now that is bigger than God.

And it’s especially important where you are focused. Make sure that you are not focused on the problem alone.

Focus on the Lord in the midst of what you are going through.

The enemy wants you to focus on the problems, and the giants that are in your way so much that they seem bigger and stronger than God. That’s what happened to Israel when they faced Goliath.

Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to the Israelites. “Why are you all coming out to fight?” he called. “I am the Philistine champion, but you are only the servants of Saul. Choose one man to come down here and fight me! If he kills me, then we will be your slaves. But if I kill him, you will be our slaves! I defy the armies of Israel today! Send me a man who will fight me!” When Saul and the Israelites heard this, they were terrified and deeply shaken.

1 Samuel 17:8-11 NLT

And this happened for 40 days and nights. (1 Samuel 17:16)

They were so focused on the GIANT problem in front of them that they forgot that God was bigger and much stronger than Goliath. But that was not the case with David. He knew God was bigger than Goliath. He was confident that God would destroy Goliath. (1 Samuel 17:34-37)

Friends, I want to encourage you to look to God in the midst of the difficult things you are going through today.

He is bigger than EVERY problem you will ever face.

No matter what you are going through call on Him.

You don’t need to go at it alone. You are not alone in the fire.

God is with you and He will deliver you!

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”

Psalm 18:2 NLT

You Are Not Alone

(excerpt)

… The reality [is] that there are a lot of people facing depression, people who are contemplating suicide, people who are facing mental health issues and so many other negative things.

But there is an answer to all the pain and difficult things we go through… throughout the year.

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Isaiah 53:3 ASV

I love this scripture because it’s talking about JESUS. He was despised and rejected by men. He was acquainted with grief.

He was a man of sorrows! What a title.

If there is anyone who knows the pain you are going through it’s JESUS. He knows exactly what you are going through?

He knows the darkness you are in and the chains that are suffocating you.

He knows the hopelessness you are feeling at the moment and that is why you should call on Him immediately.

Whatever you are going through at the moment I want you to know that you are not alone. He is with you. He wants to help you and bring you out of the darkness. He wants to break the chains that are suffocating you right now.

Whatever pain and heartache you are going through remember that Jesus went through it. He was the man of sorrows.

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Isaiah 53:4 ASV

Give Him your grief. He will carry your sorrow.

So cry out to Him for help. He loves you and wants to be there for you.

He knows your every pain that you are going through right now.

There is hope for you… And His name is JESUS!

The Grinch that Stole Love (Consumerism)

by Clarke Dixon

We light the candle of love, snuff it out, go home and then it might seem like Christmas is not about love at all. Everything everywhere is designed to sell us stuff, to drive down our bank accounts or rack up our debt. Even charitable organizations get in on the act with a year end push. I know this because we do that too as a church!

It is not just the Grinch that can steal Christmas. We have already looked at how conflict can steal our peace, expectations can steal our hope, and grief can steal our joy. Today we are thinking through how the consumerism of Christmas can steal our vision of love.

We can’t escape it, there are signs everywhere; buy this, buy that. It can feel like Christmas is a celebration of consumerism rather than a celebration of God’s gift of love. Is Christmas really about love, or is it all about money? Consumerism can make us cynical about Christmas.

So what can we do when consumerism steals our vision of love?

Isaiah has a helpful word for us. As we go there, let’s actually go there, back to the days the prophet was originally addressing. Let us think of it as if we were the first people hearing it, long before Jesus was born:

All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.

Isaiah 7:14-16 (NLT emphasis added)

We Christians have a tendency of thinking everyone was waiting for a virgin to conceive, and when that happened, we would know the child was the Messiah. That is what we understand the sign to be. However, before the time of Jesus no one would really have thought that. Rather the sign in Isaiah’s prophecy was one that was fulfilled in the days the prophecy was given. The king of Judah could expect God would do something about the pressure he was under in his day. By the time a soon to be born child is old enough to eat solid food and make decisions, two kings putting pressure on King Ahaz to side with them against Assyria will be gone and their lands “deserted.”

But what about the virgin conceiving? While translations often go with “virgin,” the Hebrew word in this prophecy can be translated “young woman.”

But what about the child being “God with us”? That the child was to be called Emmanuel does not mean he would actually be “God with us,” Indeed I met a man name Emmanuel recently and I assumed he was not the incarnation of God, but rather that he had simply been given a meaningful name. The child was to be called Emmanuel as a reminder that God is indeed with the king and his people if they remained faithful.

So to summarize this prophecy as understood before Jesus was born, we could paraphrase; “King Ahaz, you don’t need to bow to pressure, instead know that God is with you and that God cares about your people.” No one was expecting a virgin-born-Messiah in Isaiah’s day, but a sign, that God cared, that God loved them and was watching out for them.

Now let’s go to the story of Jesus’ birth:

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”

Matthew 1:18-23 (NLT emphasis added)

When a woman is pregnant, and her fiancé knows he is not the father, this is a sign of something going on, right? Mary’s pregnancy was indeed a sign, but not of what Joseph thought. This baby was a sign of the same thing the baby from Isaiah was a sign of, namely that God cares and is going to do something about the enemies threatening us. In this case there is a much bigger and badder enemy in mind than in Isaiah’s day; anything that disrupts harmonious relationship between God and God’s creation including humanity.

Early Christians saw in Isaiah 7 a prophecy that really fit the Messiah that came even though it originally was not about a coming Messiah at all. Jesus is God with us in a profound way that no one in the history of the world has ever been. Jesus is the biggest sign ever given that God cares. Not even the prophet Isaiah saw this coming.

When all the signs point to Christmas being about consumerism, let us remember the sign of Jesus’ birth. God is with us. God cares. When all the signs point to the commercialization of Christmas, we can put up our own signs of God’s love. We care, because God cares.

We Christians have been good at being known for what we are against rather than what we are for. We can be known for being against the commercialization of Christmas and the holidays being driven by consumerism. There is something to be said for that, but we may be sending the wrong signals, putting up the wrong signs. Some people’s livelihood depend on Christmas! If we are to be known for what we are for, let us be known for love. Let’s respond to the signs of the times with signs of our own. Let the signs not point to our disgust, but to God’s love.

I confess it; I can get really cynical about Christmas. However, instead of hammering away at what we don’t like about Christmas, let us live out what we do like, that love is what the season is all about, especially God’s love, but all love, even love for those who are trying hard to get us to spend more money.

Waiting for ‘The One’

This is our third time with Rev. John Partridge, the pastor at Christ United Methodist Church (UMC) in Alliance, Ohio. His website for sermon content and blog articles is PastorPartridge.com. If you’re reading this on December 11th, it appeared earlier today. Click the title which follows to read this where it first appeared.

Are You the One?

Isaiah 35:1-10                         Matthew 11:2-11                    James 5:7-10

In the blockbuster 1999 movie, The Matrix, Keanu Reeves, as the character Neo, is awakened from a pod and discovers that his entire life had been lived inside of a computer simulation. Over the course of the movie, Neo, and the audience, discover that he is the person known in their modern legend as “The One.” Although computers have taken over the universe, the computer program that makes the simulated world possible requires, as part of its vast program, an anomaly, a glitch, that is both necessary to making the whole thing work, and problematic to the machines that want to subjugate humanity.  That glitch, that anomaly, is that one randomly selected person, known as the Prime Program, or The One, carries a special piece of program code that gives them superhuman abilities in the matrix.  These abilities give that person the power to bend the rules of the matrix simulation, allowing them to ignore physics, gravity, and any other laws of nature.

In scripture, we also find a world that is waiting for the arrival of “the One.” In this case, we are dealing with the real world and with a spiritual world, and not a fictional computer simulation.  But the movies have borrowed from this scriptural tradition and have created parallels that we see in both the theater and in the stories of the Old and New Testaments.  What we find is that God, through his prophets, promised that one day he would send a messiah, a rescuer, and a redeemer, who would come to save Israel from their enemies and save the entire world from destruction, sin, and death.

But as the centuries passed, Israel asked the same question that the characters in the Matrix movie were asking.  Is the story real?  When will we see the One?  And whenever they met someone who impressed them, they might even ask themselves if he might be “The One.”  We begin this morning with Isaiah 35:1-10, as we hear God’s prophet tell of the things that the Messiah would do:

^35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

³ Strengthen the feeble hands,steady the knees that give way;
⁴ say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come, he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
⁷ The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

⁸ And a highway will be there;it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
⁹ No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there, and those the Lord has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

It was these words that were repeated, taught, and remembered, when people thought and dreamed about the coming of the messiah. And so, when John the Baptist sees that Jesus isn’t doing the things that he thought that he would do, he begins to wonder if Jesus is really “The One.”  And so, John sends his disciples to ask Jesus that very question, “Are you the One.”   Matthew 11:2-11 records Jesus’ reply.

² When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples ³ to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

⁴ Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ⁶ Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

⁷ As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? ⁸ If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. ⁹ Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

¹¹ Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

It was a fair question.  It’s always been a fair question. We have been reading the promises of God in the writings of the prophets for thousands of years.  Like many of Jesus’ own disciples, John thought that the Messiah should behave differently, and do things differently than Jesus was doing them. And Jesus’ reply was to echo Isaiah and say that the eyes of the blind were opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame are healed, the mute speak, the good news is proclaimed to the poor, and even the dead are raised.

But two thousand years later we are still asking the same question.  Was Jesus really “The One”?  If Jesus were really the Messiah, shouldn’t he have returned to do the rest of the things that Isaiah and the other prophets said that the Messiah would do?  It’s a fair question because two thousand years is a long time.  The people who had seen Jesus, even some of his disciples, were convinced that Jesus would return in their lifetimes.  And then they were sure that he would return before the Apostle John died.  And then they thought he would certainly return before the year 100, then the year 1000, then maybe it should be the year 2000.  But the calendar keeps turning and we keep asking the question, “Is he really “The One”?”  And that is exactly the question to which Jesus’ brother James was responding in James 5:7-11 when he said:

⁷ Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. ⁸ You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!

¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹ As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

As in many other things, patience is the key.  Students of a foreign language do not learn to speak fluently overnight, nor do students learn to play a musical instrument well during their first lesson, or even during the first year. In Star Wars, Master Yoda repeatedly admonished Luke Skywalker to have patience, and that is something with which we all have struggled. Like all these things that I mentioned that make sense to us, James uses an agricultural illustration that made sense to his audience.  When we plant our gardens, or when a farmer plants an entire field, we cannot harvest until the appropriate time has come.  We wait for sunshine, warm nights, and the rains that water the earth because plants have needs that must be met just as we do, and they need time to grow to maturity. In the same way, James tells us that there will be an appropriate time, that Jesus will come, and that his coming is near.

Rather than grumble and fight, we must be patient with one another, love, nurture, and support one another, and persevere through whatever this life throws at us. Rather than impatiently questioning whether Jesus is “The One,” we should remember the perseverance of Job and many others that we know from scripture, people who patiently endured and persevered through their trials and through their lives so that we could look back and see what God accomplished through them.

As we wait for the return of “The One” let us be patient in our waiting, patient with one another in our struggling, and remember the examples of scripture of those who struggled like us, but who endured so that God could demonstrate what could be accomplished with his help.

The Grinch that Stole Peace

by Clarke Dixon

Do you feel peaceful yet? Every year we bring out the Advent candle of peace and every year it stays lit for about an hour or so, depending on the length of my sermon. Then we get back into the real world which is full of conflict, wars and rumors of wars.

This year it is Ukraine. Who will it be next year? Then for some some people heading into the impending family Christmas gatherings can feel like heading into a war zone. Conflict can make you cynical about candles and prayers for peace.

You’ve heard of how the Grinch stole Christmas. Today we begin looking at other things that can steal Christmas starting with how wars and rumors of wars, plus conflicts closer to home, can steal our peace at Christmas.

So what are we to do?

Watch for the peace God will bring.

Like Isaiah when God’s people were in a terrible state:

This is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days, the mountain of the LORD’s house
will be the highest of all—
the most important place on earth.
It will be raised above the other hills,
and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.
3 People from many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of Jacob’s God.
There he will teach us his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
For the LORD’s teaching will go out from Zion;
his word will go out from Jerusalem.
4 The LORD will mediate between nations
and will settle international disputes.
They will hammer their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer fight against nation,
nor train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:1-4 (NLT)

Though the peace of God’s people was threatened and seemed far off, Isaiah looked forward with great hope. He looked forward to a new day when God’s people would experience peace, no longer fearing empires like the conquering Assyrian empire, the war-mongering Babylonian empire, or the powerful empires to come, of the Greek and Romans. All of these empires trained for war, using force and the threat of war to conquer and keep peace. God’s people might have hoped that the day would come when it would be their turn to be a mighty empire. But Isaiah had hope for a much better day, a new day, not of empire, but of the Kingdom of God.

They will hammer their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer fight against nation,
nor train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:4 (NLT)

When we are tempted to be cynical and think that peace will never come, we can take the long view, like Isaiah, and watch for the new day of peace God will bring. It might be 20 years from now, 2000 years from now, or 20 minutes from now, but there will be peace.

While watching for God to bring peace, don’t wait to pursue peace.

While we wait for God to bring a new day, we don’t need to wait to step into a new day. We may not feel like we can have an impact on wars around the globe, but we can have an impact on the conflicts closer to home. Some of the things we can do are….

Pursue humility, having the same kind of humility of Jesus (see Philippians 2). People who are humble tend to start fewer conflicts. While we can hold on to what we think is right in a dispute, simply thinking of the possibility, and saying “maybe you could be right” can change the tone from conflict to conversation. People who are humble tend to have fewer conflicts and experience greater peace in their relationships.

Pursue love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (See Gal 5:22,23). Even people who have important disagreements with us will find it hard to be vicious with us if our character and posture is marked by what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. People whose lives are marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control tend to have fewer conflicts and experience greater peace.

Pursue wisdom. “Remaining calm is the best way to take the wind out of an angry man’s sails” is one of my favourite proverbs and is fitting for an occasion of conflict. You will not find that one in the Bible, but it is wise. The Bible, as well as containing wisdom, pushes us toward wisdom, for acting well in each and every circumstance. People who are wise tend to have fewer conflicts and experience greater peace.

Pursue reconciliation, like God does. God came to us in Jesus, that is what Christmas is about, the incarnation where “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God came to us, like us, in Jesus. We killed him. God loves us anyway and offers forgiveness. In Jesus we see God’s grace, mercy, and a love that is marked by fierce forgiveness. If we, in our relationships with others, are like God in the divine relationship with us, there will be fewer conflicts and greater peace.

When I was thirteen I joined the Air Cadets where I learned how to polish my boots, iron my uniform, teach classes, and fly airplanes. When I turned 18 I left Air Cadets and joined the Army Reserves where I leaned how to kill people. There is a lot to learn in waging wars. This is one reason Ukraine has been doing as well as it has against as formidable a foe as Russia. There is a lot of training that goes into waging a war and we Canadians, among others, have been there training them for war. There is also a lot to learn in waging peace. While we thank the service members of the Canadian Armed Forces for serving us by training for and being ready for war, let us commit to being peacemakers.

There he will teach us his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”….
Nation will no longer fight against nation,
nor train for war anymore.

Isaiah 5:3,4 (selected NLT)

When wars, rumors of wars, and conflicts closer to home steal our peace, let us watch for God to bring peace, but let’s not wait to pursue peace.

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Clarke Dixon is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Cobourg, Ontario. Devotionals here first appear on his blog, Thinking Through Scripture.

Everyone is Welcome: A House of Praise for All

I’m hoping today’s devotional will ‘work’ for you. Allow me to make that more personal.

This is a case where a worship song lyric that I’d known for many years was really sparked to life by a video of a person reading a scripture passage as part of it. But for me, the scripture passage is really sparked to life knowing the song. The one truly illuminates the other.

In a print copy I had of the song lyrics was written “Isaiah 56:1-8.” How much do we lose by not digging into the scripture notations on song lyrics? Or greeting cards? Or printed sermon notes?

► You can pause here and listen to the only online recording I could find of the song, located at the bottom of today’s devotional.

Here’s the song lyrics by Chad Sundin:

Let not the foreigner who lives for me say, “I am not welcome.”
There is a place for all who choose what’s pleasing to the Holy One.
Even to the outcast I will give an everlasting name.

You are welcome
My house will be a house of prayer for all
All of the nations
My house will be a house of prayer for all

And so,  you foreigners who bind yourselves to serve the Lord, give thanks.
There’s a memorial reserved for you within my temple gates.
I will bring you to me where I am, my holy mountain.

And now the righteousness of God will shine where it has not been known.
When you have hands for justice, not for evil, my salvation’s close.
Blessed are the ones who do my work, from any tribe or tongue.

The scripture passage referenced is the opening 8 verses of Isaiah 56:

NIV.Is.56.1
This is what the Lord says:
“Maintain justice
and do what is right,
for my salvation is close at hand
and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

2 Blessed is the one who does this—
the person who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”

4 For this is what the Lord says:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—

5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will endure forever.

6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
to minister to him,
to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—

7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”

8 The Sovereign Lord declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”

The passage anticipates a day when there will be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.

NLT.Gal.3.28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I couldn’t help but think of Luke 9:

⁴⁹ “Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”

⁵⁰ “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

In another well known text, after driving the currency traders out of the temple Jesus says,

NIV.Mk.11.17 And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

The polarity of the present age pushes many to want to be about exclusion when the message of the Gospel is all about inclusion.

Everyone is welcome at the house of God.

How Do We Get People to See God’s Love?

Today we’re back again at the site A Simple Christian. The author is unnamed, but is a pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church in Cerritos. Ca. Even there, I exhausted some time looking for his name on the website. You have to respect that level of humility in a world where some pastors have their pictures so prominent.

You may click the title below to read where we located it. The format of A Simple Question presents quotations that are not annotated until the endnotes. I was going to exercise some editorial liberty and provide the sources within the body of the article, but I decided it was done for reasons of flow, and used footnotes instead.

Do We Dare Ask This Question?

Thoughts which draw (or drag me) to Jesus… and His cross:

¹  “Look at my servant, whom I strengthen. He is my chosen one, who pleases me. I have put my Spirit upon him. He will bring justice to the nations. ²  He will not shout or raise his voice in public. ³  He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. He will bring justice to all who have been wronged. ⁴  He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth. Even distant lands beyond the sea will wait for his instruction.” Isaiah 42:1-4 (NLT2)

How does this come to pass? Surely, it comes to pass when you hear that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has by his most holy touch consecrated and hallowed all sufferings, even death itself, has blessed the curse, and has glorified shame and enriched poverty so that death is now a door to life, the curse a fount of blessing, and shame the mother of glory. How, then, can you be so hardhearted and ungrateful as not to long for and love all manner of sufferings now that these have been touched and bathed by Christ’s pure and holy flesh and blood and thus have become holy, harmless, wholesome, blessed, and full of joy for you? ¹

Oh, how can we get men and women around us to realize that God Almighty, before the beginning of the world, loved them, and thought about them, planning redemption and salvation and forgiveness? ²

When divine love overflows from the interior life of the Trinity into our hearts, it immediately confronts our false selves, and we experience conflict. A struggle arises between this pure goodness—sheer giving—and the ingrained possessiveness, aggressiveness, and self-seeking which are so characteristic of us in our present condition. Thus, at the very heart of life is the challenge of sacrifice; of dying to our present condition in order to move to a higher level of life. This can only happen by letting go of the false self. Suffering and death are not enemies, but doors leading to new levels of knowledge and of love. ³

Tozer’s question (second quotation) annoys me.

Primarily because the church today, including me and mine, does not ask it enough. There are days I am not sure we care enough to ask it.

We need to ask it—and we need to find the answer.

My thought is that we need to find the answer first. We see signs of it in both Luther’s and Keating’s writings from my devotions this morning. They both talk about the impact of Christ’s presence and love in our lives. That as Jesus touches our wounds, our brokenness, they take on the same rich holiness that His wounds did on the cross, and at the resurrection.

And seeing His glory all of life and even those pains and torments become blessings.

For through them, we reach out to Him in our despair, and He lifts us up, and heals us. They become contacts points for His knowing His presence, for we don’t look for it at other times. This allows us to sacrifice our pain, our resentment, our thirst for justice, all that which feeds our basic desires for self-preservation.

The freedom that follows is that which Isaiah prophesied would happen because of God’s chosen Servant, whom we know is Jesus. That prophesy’s subject is what Tozer wants to know how to communicate.

I think the only way is to make the church so aware of what it has… for a church that knows God thinks about them, cares for them and loves them.

If we know that, we can’t stop talking about Him, trying to help others receive the blessings of seeing His presence revealed to them.

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¹ Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 141–142.

² A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).

³ Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings, ed. S. Stephanie Iachetta (New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2009), 218.

Fashioning Weapons into Agricultural Tools

Today we have another new author to introduce to you, although he has been writing online for a long time. Chuck Larsen is a U.S. pastor, and we discovered him when looking at search results for the phrase “they will beat their swords into ploughshares.” It seemed like a timely search in view of the grassroots desire for gun reform in that country, and I couldn’t help but think of social activist Shane Claiborne, who literally takes guns and fashions them into garden tools.

Chuck’s articles are shorter than some we run here, so there is also a bonus devotional for you as well. Clicking the headers (titles) below will take you to where they first appeared. The first is from 2011, the second is from last week and is part of a series in Genesis. If you’re reading this June 2022, simply visit the blog and read through.

Beat Their Swords Into Ploughshares

God has not only given us His absolute truth to guide our life by, but also has promised us a king who will one day apply that truth across the board for all mankind. This King and judge of all will be recognized by the entire world. He will come! He will establish His Kingdom and we will finally have peace. Micah 4:3-4 is a famous passage. Every soldier that’s ever walked a rice patty or stormed a beach, or pointed a rifle, or pushed a button longs for the fulfillment of this passage. Every mother who lost a son, every wife, every child whose husband or father didn’t return from battle gets goose bumps when they read this.

It says,

“He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.”

This passage is also found in Isaiah Chapter two. It is inscribed on a stone wall facing the United Nations building in New York. Khrushchev saw a figurative fulfillment of the prophecy when he visited the John Deere factory near Des Moines, Iowa: The plant was built early in World War II for manufacture of machine-gun bullets. Today it produces farm implements.

Micah 5:2-4 is another famous passage. We often sing about it at Christmas time. It tells us about the Prince of Peace who will end war for all time.

It says,

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, …And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.

The next time I sing, “O little town of Bethlehem,” I’ll sing it with more meaning. “The Hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!”

Chuck

“…his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Dust Thou Art!

In Genesis 2:7 we see more detail in God’s creation of our first ancestors. It says, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Picking up on what Wenham said in his commentary that I quoted earlier, he adds to his comments on verses 5 and 6 and says more, “The writer flashes back to the situation before mankind was created on the sixth day (1:26–28) and describes a typical middle-eastern desert, which requires human effort to irrigate and make it bloom. It was from the clay of such an area that God, the great Potter, moulded the first man and breathed into him the breath of life. Through this traditional image Genesis implies that people are by nature more than material; they have a spiritual, God-breathed, element too.”^[1]

Referring to the material aspect of man, “clay” or “earth” or more often “the ground,” Adam, the man, and Adamah the ground have an intimate relationship. Mangun says, “The word for man is adam, while ground is adamah, so the verse says that God formed adam from the dust of adamah.”^[2] He then points out that other commentators insist that both Akkadian and Egyptian texts depict God forming man from clay like a potter. This is a familiar comparison in the Bible as well. One commentator even argues that this relationship is intentional. “God forming man here is intentionally evoking the image of a potter and clay.” Then he points out “The Hebrew word used three times in Gen 2 for ‘formed’ is the same word that describes the potter and his activity in Isa 29:16.”^[3]

I love that verse. The English Standard Version follows the traditional translation and says, “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’”? I like the New Living Translation better. It says, “How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, ‘He didn’t make me’? Does a jar ever say, ‘The potter who made me is stupid’’?

It was a common practice for man, in repenting, to cover themselves with dust and ashes. I think the “dust” was symbolic of the acknowledgement of being the clay who has not right to question the potter. It took Job 40 chapters to wrestle with why bad things happen in the world to good people. After he and his friends exhausted all their puny ideas, God confronts them with questions they cannot answer. Job finally gets the point in Job 42:2-6 and says, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak.” Sometimes it’s good to remember that we are but dust.

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^[1] Wenham, Gordon J. 1994. “Genesis.” In New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, edited by D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, and G. J. Wenham, 4th ed., 62. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

^[2] Mangum, Douglas, Miles Custis, and Wendy Widder. 2012. Genesis 1–11. Lexham Research Commentaries. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

^[3] Mangum, Douglas, Miles Custis, and Wendy Widder. 2012. Genesis 1–11. Lexham Research Commentaries. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

When Relationships Get Ugly

Thinking Through Luke 4:14-21

by Clarke Dixon

Relationships can get very ugly very quickly. Whether between people groups or among family and friends, things can turn sour fast. I’m sure I don’t need to give examples as you probably have first-hand experience. Don’t we all!?

We have an example of relationships getting ugly fast when Jesus made a positive first impression on his hometown crowd and then that same crowd attempted to throw him off a cliff! Digging into this event will help us with our ugly relationships.

So what happened? Let’s see where it begins:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21 (NRSV)

We will see why things got ugly when we compare what Jesus went on to say, and not say, with what Isaiah went on to say in Isaiah 61 had Jesus just kept reading.

The first thing we notice is that Jesus stopped quoting Isaiah at a significant moment. He stopped mid-sentence. Had he gone on to read further, he would have read:

…to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,

Isaiah 61:2 (NIV emphasis added)

Jesus stopped short of talking about vengeance. Maybe that is our first clue on handling ugly relationships?

To understand what is going on here more fully, it will help us to realize that Isaiah had prophesied to God’s people about the Babylonian invasion of the promised land, the exile of many to Babylon, and then here in the passage quoted by Jesus, their subsequent return. Isaiah was looking forward to the day God’s people would be set free from the Babylonians, a day of “release to the captives” when “the oppressed go free.”

According to Isaiah, not only could God’s people look forward to freedom from these foreign oppressors, the tables would be turned on the enemy. For example,

Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines;
but you shall be called priests of the LORD,
you shall be named ministers of our God;
you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations,
and in their riches you shall glory.

Isaiah 61:5-6 (NRSV)

According to Isaiah’s prophecy God’s people would no longer be slave-laborers for the Babylonians but instead the foreign enemies would be laborers in the promised land. Also, the wealth of God’s people would no longer belong to Babylon, but instead the wealth of nations would be brought to God’s people. This is a reversal of fortunes.

Those in Jesus’ day would have latched onto this reversal of fortunes, especially when Jesus said “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What those listening to Jesus would have been thinking is, “great, just as we needed rescue from Babylon, we now need rescue from these Romans who have invaded our land! This miracle worker may just be the one who will lead the rebellion!”

However, Jesus neither went on to read that part of Isaiah 61 nor to apply it to the current situation, making no insinuation that the tables would be turned and the Romans would become subject to the Jews. As much as the crowd would have loved to have heard that, he said this instead:

Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

Luke 4:24-27 (NRSV)

Instead of speaking about the tables being turned against the foreigners, Jesus gave two examples from the Old Testament of foreigners receiving a greater blessing from God than God’s people. This is not what the crowd wanted to hear, and this is the point things got ugly and they took Jesus out to throw him off a cliff. This is also the point that helps us with ugly relationships.

Jesus did indeed come to set the prisoners free, but God’s people had bigger enemies than the Romans to worry about. Sin was the greater enemy. The Romans themselves were captive to that same enemy, and in fact, without Christ, so are we. The Romans, though being the oppressors, were themselves prisoners. They were captive to sin, captive to thinking that brute force was the way toward a better world, captive to life without God.

Indeed the brute force of Rome combined with the ignorance of the Jewish religious leaders in the execution of Jesus. Here again, Jesus stopped short of vengeance. Rising from the dead Jesus did not call for immediate destruction of his enemies, but instead sent out his disciples to tell people the good news of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom that is entered through the receiving of God’s forgiveness and grace. That forgiveness was, and is still, offered to all God’s enemies.

Our Ugly Relationships

Do you have ugly relationships with others? We have bigger enemies to worry about, enemies that all humans face, like hatred, grudges, gossip, and dangerous ideologies or theologies. Let us seek release from these enemies. Perhaps we should put more of our focus and energy on battling these sins than on doing battle with the people we have ugly relationships with. That battle may begin with our own hearts.

When relationships get ugly let us begin by stopping short of seeking vengeance. We might need to learn the art of stopping our thoughts and words mid-sentence, before things go too far. The thought of justice comes naturally to us. The jump from justice to vengeance is a short hop that comes naturally to us. The way of the cross does not. We have God’s Spirit to help!

When our relationships get ugly, let us be like Jesus and remember love first.

Our relationships, our world, could be different if we become enthused by the grace of God, whose first response to His enemies, and ours, is love.

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• To watch a 20-minute sermon on which today’s devotional is based, click this link.

This is Not the Way Things Are Supposed To Be: Welcome to Advent!

Thinking Through Isaiah 40

For a video version of the sermon on which this is based, click here.

by Clarke Dixon

Surely this is not the way things are supposed to be! Do you find yourself saying that a lot these days? You might say it about the pandemic or global conflicts. You might say it about your life, and the challenges you face. You might say it about big life-threatening things, or the little details. I said it when I went to print something in black and white and my printer told me I couldn’t because it didn’t have enough yellow ink. Surely this is not the way things are supposed to be!

Perhaps you can relate. God’s old covenant people in the Old Testament could relate, particularly in the moment spoken of in Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.

Isaiah 40:1 (NIV)

God’s people needed comfort at that moment. The city was in ruins, people were exiled to Babylon, the temple was destroyed, and according to the prophet Ezekiel, God had left the building (See Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11). Things were not as they should have been.

A message of comfort was needed.

A message of comfort was also appropriate:

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.

Isaiah 40:1-2 (NIV)

God had said that if his people stuck with him, he would stick with them, but if they didn’t he wouldn’t. They didn’t and so he didn’t. Therefore the Babylonians invaded, the natural consequence of the sin of God’s people. However, comfort was now the appropriate message because God is good and faithful to all his promises. Now that the consequences of their sin had been rolled out, God would show his faithfulness to the covenant promises by returning his people to the promised land and also in his own return:

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.

Isaiah 40:3 (NIV)

In those days of exile things were not the way they should be. But things were also not the way they would be! There was great hope for the future.

The exiles did return and they all lived happily ever after, right?

Actually, no. God’s people did indeed return, but they entered a season of their history we could call “Advent”. Yes, they had returned, and yes, there was great work done on rebuilding Jerusalem, the temple, and the nation. However, apart from one short season of self-rule, it was one foreign oppressor after another in charge. This was to be God’s people, not Caesar’s. Things were still not as they were supposed to be!

However, things were not the way they would be. There was hope; God is good, and in keeping his promises, will intervene. Therefore God’s people could look forward to the arrival of a messiah. The time between the return to Jerusalem and the birth of that Messiah was an era of Advent.

Jesus was born and everyone lived happily ever after, right?

Yes and no. There is a happily ever after, but we are not there yet. We can still say things are not as they should be.

I grew up with the song by U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Christian faith is expressed in this song, but so too is lament, that something is not right. Things are not the way they are supposed to be.

We are now in the season of Advent, but we are not just referring to the time set apart to recognize Advent in the church calendar. We live, not just in four weeks of Advent, but an entire era of Advent where we are aware that things are not as they should be, but also that things are not as they shall be.

In many of our churches we are not really sure how to observe Advent, as we often rush into the celebration of Christmas along with the rest of society. More importantly, however, what are we to do when our entire lives are spent in an era of Advent? Here are three things.

We lean into lament.

This is not the time to sugar coat the world’s problems behind a veneer of faith. Neither is it time to sugar coat our own problems as if they don’t exist. As long as there are things like poverty, oppression, injustice, racism, sexism, discrimination of many sorts, depression, disease, and the list goes on and on, then things are not as they should be. Let us say that and lean into lament. In fact leaning into lament will drive us to the second thing to do:

We lean into the better way of Jesus

Upon the birth of John the Baptist, not long before the birth of Jesus, John’s dad, Zechariah had this to say of John, and Jesus:

…you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Luke 1:76-79 (NIV emphasis added)

Here is a wonderful allusion back to Isaiah 40, that indeed God was returning and ready to intervene in a significant way. This is a message of comfort. But in this message we also see a significant reason why things are still not as they are supposed to be: we humans, Christians and non-Christians alike, fail to walk in that path of peace that Jesus through his life, teaching, example, and way of the cross has guided our feet into. This is the time to lean into that better way of Jesus. This is the time to call for change, in ourselves, and in our world.

We want to be careful here, with our focus on lament and call for change, that we recognize the better way of Jesus is the way of love and not hatred. There can be a fine line between the two. How so? If you attended our church anniversary service, you would have heard my wife share how she came to a point three years ago of saying enough is enough. She chose to make certain changes that would be to the betterment of her physical, mental, and spiritual health. This seeking of better health is an expression of love; of self-love and love for others. However, sometimes the call for change can come from somewhere else. These lines from a Tenille Townes song are striking:

The voice that I don’t wanna hear, the hurtful words I say
The long list of things about myself I wanna change
The heavy cloud that won’t leave even after it rains
I try to be a hero ’til it brings me to my knees
Yeah, there’s a villain in me

From the song “Villain in Me” written by Alex Hope and Tenille Townes

Sometimes the call for change in ourselves can come, not from a place of love, but from a place of self-hatred. Sometimes the call for change in ourselves does not lead to self-love, but to even greater self-hatred. This is not the way things are supposed to be.

Likewise, the call for change in our world can come from a place of love, but it often comes from a place of hatred. Let us be careful, therefore, that our call for change, in ourselves and in others, comes from living out the better way of Jesus which is the better way of love.

Lean into the love and promise of God

The day is coming when things shall be as they should be. Even when our calls for change seem to fall on deaf ears, or our efforts at change seem to come to nothing, change is on the way. This is a season of Advent, but seasons change and the next one will arrive with the return of our Lord! There is reason for great hope!

In Conclusion

There is a Christmas carol that captures well the spirit of Advent, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day“:

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on Earth, ” I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men

Things are not the way they should be. However,

Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will to men

Things are not as they shall be!

While we observe Advent for four weeks, we actually live in Advent our entire lifetime. As we do so, we lean into lament, and we lean into hope, that God, who is good, will intervene in an incredible way some day. In the meantime we lean into the better way of Jesus.

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Regular Thursday contributor and Ontario, Canada pastor Clarke Dixon initially posts the devotions here at his own site, Sunday’s Shrunk Sermon.

In Repentance and Stress is Your Salvation?

Thinking Through Isaiah 30:15

by Clarke Dixon

In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength . . .

Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

For many people, the Christian life does not seem like a restful life, but a stressful life. It is a life of continual guilt, and when you do not feel guilty, you feel guilt for not feeling guilty. It is a life preoccupied with sin.

Repentance can be defined as remorse over wrongdoing or sin, feeling shame and regret. We might assume that the Christian life is to be a life of constant remorse, regret, and shame.

And so some have found Christianity to be stressful. Isaiah 30:15 may as well read, ”in regret and stress is your salvation.”

Is this the way it should be? Is the Christian life best described as a life preoccupied with sin?

Thinking through Isaiah 30:15 will help. So let’s dig in.

The prophet here is speaking to a specific situation in Old Testament times when God’s people in Judah were under threat of invasion by Assyria. When small nations are under threat from bigger, more powerful nations, the most natural thing to do is make an alliance with another big nation. We do this as Canadians, seeking national security by being part of NORAD and NATO. If anyone wants to mess with us, they will have to mess with the collective might of so many other nations including the military might of the Americans.

So God’s people in Judah did what small nations do, they sought an alliance. What did God think of that?

“Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
Though they have officials in Zoan
and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
everyone will be put to shame
because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
but only shame and disgrace. ”

Isaiah 30:1-5 (NIV) 1

Making an alliance with Egypt? Bad idea!

The right thing to do, would be to seek God, to remember the covenant with God, to lean into that covenant with greater passion, trusting that God is faithful and will carry out His covenant promises. To sum up God’s covenant promises, “stick with me and I’ll stick with you and you will live and flourish in the promised land. Don’t stick with me and you are on your own (and remember you are a small nation stuck between big bad enemies, so invasion and exile is how that will go).” Therefore turn to God, and not Egypt.

This is where verse 15 comes in:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,

Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

To paraphrase; in turning, or rather returning, to God for help, rather than turning to Egypt for help, and in resting, putting your future as God’s people in God’s hands, rather than trying so hard to ensure safety through an alliance, will be your rescue from the Assyrians. In a quiet confidence in God and trusting in him rather than the Egyptians will be your strength.

The Hebrew word translated “repentance” here in the NIV is not the word meaning “feel ashamed of” or “regret.” It is the word for turning as recognized in many translations, including the NRSV: “In returning and rest you shall be saved”.

So in context, repentance here is not so much a feeling of regret or shame over sin as we would normally think of it, but a decisiveness, a decision to depend on God rather than Egypt. Yes, feeling guilty over not sticking with God and his ways would happen, but the more important thing than the emotions involved is the decision to stick with God. As my wife and I have often said to our children, “it is not an apology we are looking for, but a change in behaviour.”

Given that Isaiah 30:15 was written for a specific occasion, what does it have to do with us?

Does this mean that we as Canadians should not turn to allies like we do with NORAD and NATO for security and defence? Does this mean that we should not turn to doctors when we fall ill, or scientists and their vaccines when there is a pandemic? Does this mean we should trust no one but God alone?

Well, no. Remember the prophet was originally speaking to a specific people who were under a specific covenant with specific promises, about a specific patch of land, during a situation that was specific to them. We are not that people, those are not our promises, Canada is not that land, we are not living under that covenant.

That being said, we too have the opportunity to be in a covenant relationship with God; the new covenant through Jesus. He died for the forgiveness of our sins. God’s promise to us is eternal life with God, beginning with his presence in our lives now. When it comes to these spiritual realities that are a matter of eternal life and death, what can be said about the old covenant, can be said about the new covenant:

In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

Isaiah 30:15 (NRSV)

In turning to God and in resting in what God has done for us in Jesus is our salvation, in quietness and trust is our strength. We don’t depend on ourselves, on our own capacity to impress God with how good we are. We live in relationship with God, trusting Him, trusting in His love for us. We rest in God’s love, we live in a quiet confidence. The Christian life is not a life of preoccupation with our sin, and our imperfections, but of preoccupation with God and God’s perfect love.

There may well be things in our lives that we should feel ashamed of, that we should regret. Repentance is part of the Christian life and an opportunity for growth. However, framing the Christian life as a life of constant shame and regret, as a never-ending preoccupation with sin, is itself regrettable.

The Christian life is a life of trust and living in God’s love, of resting in God’s loving embrace.

It is not “in regret and stress is your salvation” but “in turning to God and rest is your salvation.”

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Join us again tomorrow for a “catch up” post now that Clarke is back from vacation. Clarke Dixon appears here most Thursday and is a pastor in Ontario, Canada. Clicking the header which appears just above his name takes you to his blog, Sunday’s Shrunk Sermon.

It’s All a Mess, But There’s Hope!

by Clarke Dixon

What a messed-up Christmas this is likely to be! Even more people than usual will be dealing with loneliness. Family and church traditions will be messed-up including carol sings. And of course, COVID-19 is not expected to take a holiday for the holidays. Then there are those who will spend Christmas in the hospital. In fact, this is not just a messed-up Christmas, it is a messed-up year.

This will not be the first messed-up Christmas. God’s people were in a big mess that very first Christmas. How did they end up there? God created humanity. Humans rebelled. God had a plan to reconcile humans to himself which included the calling of a special people, the Hebrew people known as Israel. God entered into a covenant with them, which if you are not sure what a covenant is, marriage is a covenant complete with covenant promises, known to us as vows. As is the case with marriage, there are consequences when one of the partners breaks the covenant. God’s people broke the covenant and as a consequence things did not go well, they went into exile. God promised restoration. Though an invading army had taken the people out of the promised land, He promised they would return. They did eventually return to the land, but it felt like God did not. First the Greeks invaded. Alexander the Great was not that great if you were Jewish. Then the Romans invaded. They were the ones in charge when Jesus was born. The Romans installed Herod the Great as the king, even though he had no right to the throne. Herod the Great was not that great either, if you were Jewish.

This was not how things were supposed to be. God had promised to bless Israel and to bless all peoples through Israel. But here were God’s people under the thumb of the Romans. The Romans were ever present, God seemed far away.

As often happens when people are in a mess, things get messy. When people are in messy situations, they tend to divide over how to deal with it. We see this in God’s people at the time of Jesus’ birth. Some were known as zealots. They were calling for everyone to rise up against the Romans and fight for freedom. Some were known as Pharisees. They were calling everyone to double down on being religious. Some, including those known as Sadducees, were calling people to accept the status quo. Then there were those like the Essenes, who had given up on everyone else and were trying to create their own, smaller, but better, community.

We see these four responses among people anytime things get messy. We see this today in nations, families, indeed any people group. I have seen it in churches:

• “Pastor, we need to fight for what is right.”
• “Pastor, we need ensure greater purity among our people.”
• “Pastor, we need to just go along with the powers-that-be.”
• “Pastor, I’m outta here.”

Perhaps you have heard these kinds of responses as well . . . or responded to messy situations in these kinds of ways.

With all the mess we are in and the mess we stir up in response, is there hope?

Isaiah predicted that the people would be in a mess following their exile. He had a message of hope for them, and for us:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.

Isaiah 40:1-2 (NRSV)

If it felt to God’s people in Jesus’ day like the exile never really ended, that the covenant with God was broken forever, that God had finally walked out of the relationship completely; take comfort, He did not. The people are no longer suffering the consequence of breaking the covenant. God is still in love with people. God still has a plan of blessing.

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5 (NRSV)

If it felt to God’s people like they came back from exile, but God remained far away, they were to take heart, for God was on the way. Isaiah used imagery here of preparing for the arrival of someone very important to the city, making sure the road is suitable for the king.

A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:6-8 (NRSV)

If it felt to God’s people like they would never get their act together, that their “constancy is like the flower of the field,” that they would never be that faithful people God deserves, they were to take comfort, for God’s promises still stand: “the word of our God will stand forever.” God is still on ‘plan A’ and God’s people are still part of ‘plan A’ even if they had trouble sticking to it.

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.

Isaiah 40:9-11 (NRSV)

Though the Romans seemed to be in charge, though the people were divided, God was on the way. God is powerful, and can deal with every mess created by every enemy. God cares for his people like a shepherd cares for a flock.

The message of Isaiah 40 was clear. Despite the mess, God was on His way.

Enter Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark does not contain the Christmas story. But it does begin with the fact of Christmas:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’ ”

Mark 1:1-3 (NRSV)

The Gospel writer goes on to tell us about John the Baptizer who prepares the way for Jesus. The message is clear. God is on His way, and through Jesus He is here. Merry Christmas!

The Gospels go on to connect Jesus with the Isaiah 40 passage, particularly the image of God coming as a shepherd:

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. . . . And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.

Mark 6:34, 38-39 (NRSV)

When Jesus feeds the five thousand with just a few loaves and fish, the image of Jesus as shepherd is unmistakable. In fact when Jesus has the disciples make people sit down on the green grass we are even reminded of Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;

Psalm 23:1,2a (NRSV)

Additionally, Jesus refers to himself as a shepherd in John 10:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:11 (NRSV)

The hope filled message of Isaiah, chapter 40, of God coming to us, and being a shepherd among us, is fulfilled in Jesus. He promises to be present with us always:

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:20b (NRSV)

With the mess we are in, where is our hope today? Is it found in,

• fighting, and using violence in words or actions, like the zealots?
• doubling down on being religious like the Pharisees?
• acquiescing to the status quo like the Sadducees?
• separating ourselves from the others like the Essenes?

Our hope is in walking with Jesus. He is the shepherd who will lead us through the mess, feeding us, binding up our wounds, carrying us, dealing with the enemy, even the greatest of enemies:

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:26 (NRSV)

When Jesus came into the world it was a very messed-up world. It was a messed-up Christmas. God’s people were in a mess and in trying to deal with it, they just made things messier yet. A baby was born on that first messed-up Christmas, and with him, hope was born.

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Clarke Dixon is a Canadian pastor. The full reflection (sermon) can be seen as part of this “online worship expression” (online service). Previous posts by Clarke can be found here, or at clarkedixon.wordpress.com.

How God Uses the Problem(s) You’re Facing Today

Today again, we’re introducing a new (to us) writer, K.K. Hodge, who describes herself as “a family nurse practitioner, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, Sunday School teacher, church treasurer, and crazy critter farmer.” She’s also the author of three books, but only began blogging daily devotions at Inspirations from the Funny Farm after Coronavirus hit. Click the link below to read today’s at source. You might also enjoy the one she posted this morning.

Give me a word, Lord: PICTURE THIS

Isaiah 41:13 For I hold you by your right hand—I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, “Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.”

Isaiah 46:4 I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.

Isaiah 41:10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

We’ve been reading in the book of Isaiah the last few nights as we continue our reading through the Bible in a year plan. There are some very good words of wisdom in this book and many great reassurances. I praise God for His Word. I am so thankful that He provided His Holy Word to give us guidance, strength, and peace. We have God that is bigger than all our troubles and problems, and His Word reveals that to us over and over again.

We all have problems. We may not admit them, but if we are living and breathing, we probably have some sort of problem or concern. The problem with our problems is that we try work them out on our own. I’m a very visual person. I love to take pictures. I take pictures of anything and everything, and when I’m working things out in my mind, I do so with pictures or images. Sometimes we have to picture things in order to get a clear image of the situation at hand.

When we picture all our problems in our mind, we see all the different problems in the picture. We may see financial problems, relationship issues, concerns about our children, health troubles, job stressors, and the list goes on. We see all of these troubles in the picture, and then we see ourselves sitting in the middle of the picture surrounded by all of these problems. The problem with this is that we are seeing it all wrong! When we look at a picture of all those problems, we shouldn’t see ourselves sitting in the midst of the trouble, but rather we should see GOD in the picture with our problems. We have to take ourselves out everything, and we need to give everything to God.

Some might say, if God is handling all of my problems, why do I have so many? Well, my friend, sometimes we bring those problems on ourselves. We aren’t perfect. We goof up every now and then even when we are trying to live a good and righteous life. God can and will handle any and all problems that we are enduring, but we have to trust Him through the process. Psalm 119:71-72 tells us, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.” What? Did he say that suffering is good for me? Yea, buddy! When we go through the struggles in life, we learn from the difficulties and we learn to lean on our Lord and Savior. We are going to have problems in this life. Life is a problem solving adventure. WE may not choose the problem, but we get to choose how the problem affects us. The problem will either develop us or defeat us. We get to make the choice.

No matter what type of difficulty you are going through, you can rest assured that God will use the problem for your benefit. Sometimes He uses the situation to direct you. Maybe He needs to get you to start moving in a certain direction, and He uses a problem to ignite you and get you going. Maybe, just maybe, God has placed something on your heart that He wants you to do, but you won’t budge. Maybe He uses a problem to get you moving in the direction in which He desires for you to go.

Sometimes He uses a problem to correct you. Maybe you are going down a path of destruction, and God uses a problem to teach you a lesson. Ouch! We don’t like the sounds of that one, but there is truth there. Just as a parent disciplines a child who is doing wrong, God is going to discipline His kids. He’s going to get our attention, and a lesson will be learned. Just as we love our children too much to allow them to do things that will harm them, God loves us too much to ignore us when we are doing wrong.

Maybe God is using the problem to inspect you. Did you ever think of that? I’ve read this little saying on social media. “You are holding a cup of hot coffee, and someone bumps you and causes the hot coffee to spill everywhere. Why did you spill the coffee? Because there was coffee in the cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea. The point is whatever is in the cup will be spilled out. Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you, whatever is inside of you will spill out.” So…what spills out when you are struggling through a difficult situation? Do people around you see fear, anger, bitterness, or do they see love and grace as the marks of a true child of God? What does God see when He inspects you?

Maybe God is using your problem to protect you. Perhaps He has closed the door on a job, a new place to live, or a dream that you had, and it seems like the end of the world. We have to remember that God knows what is coming down the road, and sometimes He closes doors so that other doors can be opened. We can’t see as God sees. He is all knowing, and He knows just what we need when we need it. He may remove a person, a thing, or even a job from our lives in order to provide needed protection.

Our problems weigh us down. We try to carry the burden all alone. Oh, if we could only see the big picture. All those problems that we picture are not too big for God. We may or may not have invited the problem in, but regardless, God is going to use the situation for our good and His glory every time. Stop picturing yourself surrounded by all of the problems of the day. Begin picturing our perfect Lord and Savior…sitting right there in the middle of it all…working it all out. He’s working on each one of us. He’s directing us, correcting us, inspecting us, and protecting us, and ultimately, y’all, He is perfecting us. Just picture it!

 

The God Who Touches Lepers

Melody has creating devotional writing at In Pleasant Places since January, 2013. This is her 5th time being highlighted here. Her blog started somewhat organically from correspondence she was sharing with a friend, as she explains in her story. To read this at her blog, click the header below.

Powerful Healing, Compassionate Love – Isaiah 53:4-5

“Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows…
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with His stripes we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:4-5

I read these words by Charles Spurgeon this morning:

“What a mass of hideous sickness must have thrust itself under the eye of Jesus! Yet we read not that He was disgusted, but patiently waited on every case… Whatever my own case may be, the beloved Physician can heal me; and whatever may be the state of others whom I may remember at this moment in prayer, I may have hope in Jesus that He will be able to heal them of their sins.”

This is the example the disciples witnessed. Jesus, with compassion and care for all. Not repulsed. Not hesitant or intimidated. Instead, He was welcoming and patient. Demonstrating that there is no lost cause; He can heal all who come to Him. A powerful physical demonstration of His ability to heal, cleanse, and restore, pointing to His greater healing of the soul for all who believe in Him.

No sin is too great, too dark, too ongoing. He cleanses all.

That’s what He died for.

And He meets us with the same compassion regardless of how dirty, shameful, and unworthy we feel – just as He met the high priest in Zechariah’s vision, rebuking his accuser, removing his iniquity (taking it on Himself ultimately on the cross), and clothing him in pure garments (Zechariah 3:1-4).

As Jesus reached out His hand to touch the leper (Luke 5:11-13), He reaches out His hand to touch and cleanse us. To pull us out of the mire and give us a new song to sing (Psalm 40:1-3). To change our lives because we are delivered into His kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13-14), freed to know Him in relationship and experience His grace in obedience. Freed to love and serve Him, walking in the newness of abundant life. With strength and peace, joy and steadfast hope.

When we are freed, may we never forget the greatness of His salvation, the depth and depravity of sin He saves us from, or our continual need of His mercy and grace – and His ability and ready willingness to meet that need (Hebrews 4:16).

May we never look at others’ chains and sicknesses with disgust, but as our Savior does – with compassion. With love. Reaching out to meet them where they are, and gently sharing our experience of a God who loves them enough to die for them, a God who will not shame them, a God who stands with ready open arms to assure them, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments” (Zechariah 3:4).

Fellow believers, let us not be repulsed.

Let us not shame.

Let us not cast down.

Rather, let us reach out to love.

Let us listen.

Let us share of the Father’s great love and mercy, manifested on the cross of Jesus and extended very personally to those He puts in our path.

Let us share this not to change them, but to introduce them to the living God of love, hope, peace, and freedom. For each precious one who believes in Him, He will draw them out of the mire into His light. He will free them from their sin. We bring others to Jesus in love and compassion; His Spirit does the rest, just as He continues His work to free us from our sin. A work that He will bring to completion for all who are His (Philippians 1:6).

Because His healing work is that powerful and His love for us is that great.

“I waited patiently for the LORD;
He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.”
Psalm 40:1-3

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Potsherds, Grog, and other Pieces of Our Past

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from popular Christian author Lysa TerKeurst‘s bestselling book, It’s Not Supposed to be This Way in which she shares living through cancer. To read the full excerpt, click this link. To learn more about the book, click this link.

When God Gives You More Than You Can Handle

[O]ne day… a couple of girls introduced themselves while standing in line to get some take-out food at a restaurant near my house. We chatted for a minute about what God had been teaching them, and then the topic of what I’d be writing next came up. I told them about… the revelation God had given me about dust. Jessica’s eyes lit up. Her mom is a professional potter…

…She’d seen clay being formed into many beautiful things when placed into her mother’s hands. And then she shared something with me that made my jaw drop.

She told me that wise potters not only know how to form beautiful things from clay, but they also know how important it is to add some of the dust from previously broken pieces of pottery to the new clay. This type of dust is called “grog.” To get this grog, the broken pieces must be shattered to dust just right. If the dust is shattered too finely, then it won’t add any structure to the new clay. And if it’s not shattered enough, the grog will be too coarse and make the potter’s hands bleed.

But when shattered just right, the grog dust added to the new clay will enable the potter to form the clay into a larger and stronger vessel than ever before. And it can go through fires much hotter as well. Plus, when glazed, these pieces end up having a much more beautiful, artistic look to them than they would have otherwise.

Jessica smiled and said, “C’mon, that will preach, right?!”

Oh, it absolutely did. I kept thinking about what Jessica shared and how it might relate to my season of suffering. What if the clay made from all the other dust currently in my life could be strengthened by this newly added broken piece?

And then I read Isaiah 45:9:

Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?

God is making something beautiful out of my life. I know that. So, why question what He sees as the necessary ingredients to make my life stronger and more beautiful than ever? Sure, my diagnosis added some more brokenness, but even this could be used for my good.

I kept reading that verse from Isaiah and decided to do a little investigation into the term potsherd.

A potsherd is a broken piece of pottery.

Interestingly enough, a potsherd was also mentioned in the story of Job when he was inflicted with an awful disease.

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. — Job 2:7-10

A broken potsherd can lie on the ground and be nothing more than a constant reminder of brokenness. It can also be used to continue to scrape us and hurt us even more when kept in our hands.

Or, when placed in our Master’s hands, the Master Potter can be entrusted to take that potsherd, shatter it just right, and then use it in the remolding of me to make me stronger and even more beautiful.

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Taken from It’s Not Supposed to be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. http://www.thomasnelson.com.