PREPARE THE WAY

Matthew 3:10 “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

An old farmer had plowed around a large rock in one of his fields for years. He had broken several plowshares and a cultivator on it and had grown rather morbid about the rock. After breaking another plowshare one day, and remembering all the trouble the rock had caused him through the years, he finally decided to do something about it. When he put the crowbar under the rock, he was surprised to discover that it was only about six inches thick and that he could break it up easily with a sledgehammer. As he was carting the pieces away he had to smile, remembering all the trouble that the rock had caused him over the years and how easy it would have been to get rid of it sooner.

Creating something new often requires that we first remove any obstacles to that new creation. For instance, putting up a new building first requires that we prepare the land. Many rocks, bushes and trees, at times, have to be removed. At times, wet lands have to be filled in with soil so that a new building will be able to have a stronger foundation. If you don’t get rid of the obstacles, you simply cannot build. Try putting a foundation on a piece of land filled with stumps, bush, water and rocks and see what will happen. It just can’t be done.

When we enter into a new relationship with a person, one of the tasks we have to engage in is removing obstacles to that relationship. Some people know each other at work or at church for years, but they never get close because there are obstacles to furthering such a relationship. Perhaps, some surface things like appearance or language, or an apparent difference of opinion or lifestyle, keep people apart. Only when those obstacles get swept aside do two people have any chance of really becoming friends.

If we have purchased a piece of land and want to build our home there, we carefully look at the land and ask ourselves: What do I need to do in order to prepare this land for my home? As we reflect on our lives we could ask: What are the major obstacles that hinder us from really developing a strong with relationship with Christ?

Are we allowing a certain sin to constantly drag us down, robbing us of our peace and injecting sadness into everything we do? Perhaps it is something that happened in the past, something that we consider to be such a heavy burden that we don’t know how we have carried it so long and so far. We can still relive the past in our imaginations, still blaming ourselves, still wishing it had never happened. If such is the case, we need to focus on Christ and not on ourselves. Jesus wants to free us from these past burdens. He died to bring us freedom. God is a God of mercy, forgiveness and freedom. Allow the Lord to carry those things which are too heavy for you. Take them to him in prayer.

The first, middle and last step to clearing the ground for a right relationship to Jesus is prayer. Through sincere and persevering prayer Jesus will most certainly lead us back to himself. Any obstacle standing in the way of a healthy relationship with Jesus is an obstacle to our true peace and happiness. Allow the Lord to remove all obstacles in your life.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

One of my earliest movie memories was the 1978 version of Superman. The storyline and special effects aren’t as impressive now as they were then, but I was just a child. I remember one scene in particular. Lois Lane was driving through the desert when her car is swallowed by an earthquake and Superman can’t get there in time to save her. Superman gets super angry and he starts flying around the earth at supersonic speed and he reverses time by reversing the rotation of the earth thus saving Lois.

Don’t you wish you could do that? I know that isn’t based on very good science. For one thing, the earth rotates around its axis at about 1,000 mph so if Superman had done what he did he would have saved Lois but the entire planet would have died from whiplash. But it’s a cool concept.

Wouldn’t it be great if you were having a conversation with someone and you said something you wish you hadn’t said and you could simply excuse yourself from the conversation, fly around the earth a few times, and pick up before you left off? Of course, the real danger then would be mid-air collisions because we’d all be flying around the earth all the time. I wish I could reverse time but the arrow of time points in one direction. You can’t undo what you’ve done. In other words, some things in life are irreversible.

When I was a freshman in high school, I blew out my elbow in the last game of our baseball season. I went to the doctor for a diagnosis and he said I tore my radial collateral ligament. I asked him how long it’d take to heal. He said, “Never.” I’ll never forget the feeling of finality—the damage was done and there was nothing I could do to change it. I learned a lesson the hard way that day: some things in life are irreversible. You can’t untear a ligament. For what it’s worth, I’ve also learned from personal experience that you can’t undelete documents, unbake cookies, uncut hair or unrun red lights with surveillance cameras. Some things in life are irreversible. But here’s some good news: God is in the business of reversing the irreversible.

If you read the gospels you’ll discover that Jesus reversed weather patterns. He reversed blindness. He reversed paralysis. And 2,000 years ago, He reversed death. I love the way Acts 2:24 says it. “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” I love that language. We tend to think of dying and coming back to life as being impossible. Peter says the exact opposite. It was impossible for death to keep its grip on Christ.

Our scripture paints a picture of how I believe God wanted things to be from the beginning. God, living in holy communion with creation, free from hurt, pain, disappointment, sickness, loss, etc. Life may be difficult at times. We all have felt the effects of a problematic world. But one day, God will reverse the ill impacts of our fleshly existence. In the end, he will bring his people to a glorious place, safe with him. Now that’s a happy ending.

LOVE GOD WITH EVERYTHING

Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

I remember a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown was talking to Lucy. He remarked about the tragedy of so much apathy in the world today. And Lucy responded, "Yeah, it’s terrible. But who cares?"

To love the Lord with all your heart means to love him with pure devotion. It’s not enough to give Christ a place in our hearts. We are called to love him with all of our heart. When you love someone with all of your heart, you think about them almost all of the time. You long to be with them. They’re the priority in your life. And to love God with all your heart is the same. It means that your heart is devoted to him. It means that you are faithful to him. He becomes the most important thing in your life. But the love we are to have for God has another characteristic. You are not only to love God with all your heart; you are to love him with all your soul. To love God with all our soul means that our love for God ought to be full of passion. And we are all people of passion. Some people are passionate about sports, some people are passionate about their work, some people are passionate about hobbies, like art, or music. People are passionate about all sorts of things, but how many of us have the same passion for God that we have for these other things?

We cannot afford to be apathetic about our love for God. We must be excited about our relationship with Jesus. We must be passionate. In the Song of Solomon, we hear about the passionate kind of love we ought to have for God. Song of Solomon is a pretty racy book, if you think about it. But it’s describing a passionate, all consuming love. And about giving everything you’ve got to the one you love. And it’s a perfect example of how our love for the Lord should be. Real love is passionate love. To love God with all our soul means that we must be involved with all our emotions in our relationship to him. When you’ve really given Jesus all of your heart, then it’s easy to become excited about following him.

Our love for Christ begins with a pure devotion and expresses itself by being full of passion, but there is another element. Jesus says that you are to love the Lord your God with your entire mind. This is a love that is thoroughly considered. Today it seems that some Christians are so open minded that their brains are falling out. Emotionalism is a big problem in the body of Christ today. In Romans chapter one the apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Loving God is not an emotional expression that bypasses the mind. It is true that when people rely on their own intellectual capacity to figure out God, they always come up short. Because God is too big to be totally figured out by human minds. But we can learn and know what God has revealed to us. It is clear from the Scripture that God fully intends for our minds to be involved in our love for him.

Do you have a passion for God? Is that fire burning within you today? Make the conscious choice to ignite and maintain your passion.

WHERE IS GOD WHEN I'M HURTING?

Job 23:10 “But He knows the way that I take. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as refined gold.”

One of the biggest speed bumps to understanding God can be our encounters with pain and suffering. The hurts we experience may stem from abandonment or abuse, sorrow and loss, fears and failures, setbacks and confrontations, chronic illness and pain - the list is long. We all hurt for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes God’s hand of comfort and his compassion toward us in our pain and sorrow is so wonderful we can’t describe it. He appears on the scene of our calamity with assistance and provision and we stand in awe of his presence. At other times, however, he seems distant and disinterested, like he’s moved and hasn’t left a forwarding address. He has all the power and provision necessary to alleviate our misery but he doesn’t seem to be lifting a finger to come to our rescue. It’s at times like that when our faith is tested. Our cries for help seem to go unanswered; our thirst for answers unquenched. If we’re not careful we can become fearful and disillusioned with God when we’re hurting.

The classic biblical example of searching for God when you’re hurting is the story of Job. Job quickly lost his possessions, his health and his children in a succession of natural disasters. And even though he knew God, he made an honest admission in his pain. Have you ever had an experience like Job’s? Have you had those times when you searched for God and you couldn’t find him? You knew he was at work but you had no immediate indication that he was doing anything to come to your rescue in the midst of your pain? Where is God when I’m hurting?

HE’S PROMPTING POSITIVE CHANGES IN ME

What tests have you been experiencing lately? Do you think nothing good can come of them? If so, think again. Testing has the potential to burn out our impurities. Difficulties are part of God’s refining process. Our pain is often the fire that makes us better. And as we become a better person, we experience more of the joy and fulfillment in life that God created us to experience. We become more like God. Difficulties in our life have tremendous power to change us – for better or for worse. We get stronger or weaker – more positive or more negative. We become more hopeful or more cynical – depending on our response to our pain.

Sometimes our biggest problem is waiting. We don’t want to wait. We want to wrestle. We’re like Jacob in the Old Testament. We want to wrestle with God and we want to wrestle with our problems. But that’s not always what God wants. God wants us to approach our problems with faith in him. He wants us to exercise confidence in his timing. God doesn’t always take away our problems because, quite frankly, his goal isn’t for us to live a problem-free life. His design is for us to become more like his son Jesus.

GOD IS SHOWING ME THAT HE LOVES ME

The initial reaction to that statement is, “If God wants to show me how much he loves me why doesn’t he just stop the pain?” Sometimes, our hurts are not always because we have done wrong, but sometimes God doesn’t stop the hurting in our life because the pain is meant to keep us from straying off into even more hurtful and harmful territory. He loves us enough to protect us by confronting us with pain to make us think about how we’re living, how we’re thinking or acting. He loves us enough to use our pain as a boundary that keeps us from hurting ourselves even more.

If God were as weak-willed as we are he wouldn’t be as consistent in his discipline. But he’s not a doting father who gives his children everything they want when they want it because he knows that’s not always best for us. We want the pain to stop and God wants the pain to stop. He doesn’t enjoy disciplining us any more than we enjoy being disciplined. But he wants to burn the impurities out of our life.

Sometimes you’re going to have pain. Sometimes you’re going to hurt. Where is God when this happens? He’s right there with us because he loves us.

RESTORATION

Joel 2:25 “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.”

Joel was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah between 835-796 B.C. about the same time Elisha was prophesying to the Northern Kingdom, Israel in 848 BC. Joel speaks to people who had become very complacent and self centered. They took God for granted and worshiped idols. They had become insensitive to the condition of their spiritual lives. Joel warned them that sooner or later their sinful lifestyle would bring down the judgment of God, yet their physical and moral senses were dulled to the point that they seemed oblivious to their need. Why did they need God? Up to this time they had been experiencing a great abundance agriculturally--they had plenty of grain, corn and wine and oil. They didn’t want for a thing. Occasionally they would go to the temple to offer the sacrifices that were required and go through the outward religious motions. But it didn’t really mean much to them. As they continued on this downward spiral, a crisis occurred that stopped them right in their tracks. A terrible plague of locust swarmed into the land and nothing was left in the fields--once overflowing, they are now empty of crops. It affected the animals as well as the agriculture of the area. The magnitude of the destruction was so devastating that it would take a long time to recover from it.

Joel comes on the scene at this time to speak not only a message of judgment to these wayward people, but also a message of hope. I wonder how these people felt as they looked around at the devastation in their lives. Maybe they felt hopeless that they could do nothing to change the way things were. Maybe they felt depressed. Maybe they felt like giving up completely. Some may have felt like working very hard to do something to change things.

How do you feel when things hit your life like a destructive swarm of locust? Scripture points out here that what the swarming locusts didn’t ruin the other types did. In the King James Version the four types mentioned are: the locust, the cankerworm, the palmerworm, and the caterpillar. These represent destruction of different types--stripping, cutting, swarming, and hopping. It is like when things hit us we might say, “well when one problem gets taken care of I was hit from a different direction.” What each of the locust groups had left behind, the others had eaten. Problems came in from all directions and just devoured everything.

There are seasons in our life that involve famine and devastation and then there are times of restoration. The seasons of famine have a divine purpose in our lives and they accomplish things that only these hard places can accomplish. Sometimes God can’t get our attention when everything is going along fine. Sometimes we wonder where the bad things come from. What is their source? Is it God’s judgment? Is it just natural circumstances? Does it come from our own bad choices? Or does it happen just because we are in the wrong place at the wrong time? We can probably answer, “All of the above.”

Hope is found in the fact that no matter how devastating things seem, God desires to restore us. Restoration can come to us even when it looks impossible--even after devastation of long standing. God says, “I will restore to you the years...” Sometimes when devastation comes it seems to eat away years of blessing. There are times when it is the result of personal sin or of fortuitous circumstances.

Restoration has some prerequisites that can’t be overlooked. There has to be a genuine turning to God and repentance. Not just an outward ritual. He will give you a new spiritual perception to recognize what God is really doing for you. God wants each of us to know that there is a time when he will restore in order to demonstrate his hand in our lives. If God has taken you through some lean times, know that he is the restorer of what the locusts have eaten and acknowledge him and praise him for doing it for you too.

SAME SOLUTION TO AN AGE OLD PROBLEM

Leviticus 1:3 “…that he may be accepted before the Lord.”

The word sin is used 90 times in the book of Leviticus, more than any other book in the Bible, and it is used over 4 times as much in Leviticus than in Genesis and Exodus combined. In Exodus, we find God being concerned with getting his people out of Egypt. God was concerned with releasing them from the bonds of Egyptian slavery. In the book of Leviticus, which covers a one month period of time after the building of the tabernacle, we find God now concerned with getting Egypt out of his people. God was concerned with dealing with the people’s problem of sin. Ever since Adam and Eve started the process in the garden, mankind has continually throughout the years, sought to do things their own way, and they have openly rebelled against and rejected God’s way. Sin is disobedience to God’s laws and commands. And as Paul says in Romans, we sin when we fall short and when we don’t measure up to what God expects us to be and what God expects us to do.

Sin is disobeying God and breaking his laws. Sin separates us from God. God is Holy. Four times in the book of Leviticus God tells his people to be holy because he is holy. As God speaks to Moses from the tabernacle, he not only pointed out to Moses mans problem of sin. God also, told Moses of the provision that he was instituting to deal with the sins of God’s people.

You see man’s problem of sin must be dealt with, before man can be restored to fellowship with a holy God. And God seeing man’s need and knowing that man was in no position to do anything about his sin, called from the tabernacle to Moses. He spoke to Moses informing him of his provision for man’s need. That provision was through offerings and sacrifice. The words offering and sacrifice are used over 90 times in this book and the first 7 chapters deal with the 7 sacrifices that God established. As you reflect on the Mosaic Sacrificial system you will see many common threads and applications to our own worship of God today.

Does mankind and God’s people still struggle with the problem of sin? They most certainly do. The majority of the world is still lost in sin. And Christians struggle with sin as well. The apostle John in his first letter to the church writes that if any Christian says he is without sin he is a liar. God still makes provision for our sin by sacrifice. When were sinners God demonstrated his love for us in this way - he gave his one and only son to die on a cross for us, while we were still his enemies. Jesus bore the burden of our sin upon his beaten back. Jesus carried the penalty of our sin away from us. Our sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west. God provided the ultimate sacrifice for sin himself in Christ.

SLOW TO ANGER

Nahum 1:3 “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.”

In today’s world it seems like good guys finish last…or at least that’s what people want us to think. Winning from God’s point-of-view is different. In the end you may not wind up with a million dollars, but you have God’s approval. True happiness in life comes from living right, with a clear conscience. When we trust in the Lord, we experience victory and we survive not only this world, but we have a guarantee for the world to come.

The prophet Nahum delivered a sober message of judgment to Nineveh, but in the middle of his harsh prophecy he offers hope. God knows us and wants to protect us. Nahum’s name means “comfort” or “consolation”. But for those who reject God, the prophet cries, “Where can I find anyone to comfort you?” (3:7). Nahum presents God as our refuge, a shelter in the time of storm.

Protection doesn’t mean a carefree life. When trials come we trust in God and seek his refuge. Faith requires trust without full knowledge; it means living with uncertainty. God chooses our circumstances and trials; we choose our attitudes and reactions to them. I’m reminded of an affirmation found written on a cellar wall in Germany where Jews hid from the Nazis: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I am feeling it not. I believe in God even when He is silent.”

Nahum wrote 150 years after the time of Jonah. Under Jonah’s reluctant preaching the Ninevites repented and God withheld his wrath. But their repentance wore off and they sank deeply into all kinds of sin. Nineveh was again a place of unparalleled wickedness. It was also the wealthiest city in the world, furnished with priceless objects taken as plunder from conquered nations.

God makes it plain that he is angry with Nineveh. We don’t like to think of God as being angry, yet the Bible is clear that he hates sin. You’ve likely heard about billboards along the highway with messages from God. One says, “Don’t make me come down there.” There’s an old children’s hymn that begins, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” This is perfectly true about our Lord, but it is not all the truth. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem and prophesied that this city which rejected him would be destroyed. The Hebrew word used by Nahum for anger literally means “heavy or hot breathing”. When considering the wrath of God, there are two words we tend to confuse. One is retaliation; the other retribution. To retaliate is to seek revenge and get even. God does not retaliate. Martin Luther (in his typical manner) said, “If I was God and the world had treated me as it did Christ, I would kick the wretched thing to pieces.” In His justice, God brings retribution. Paul makes this clear in Romans when he says “The payment for sin is death” (6:23). He has the power to deliver or destroy. He offers us the option to decide which one it will be.

Yet even when God is angry at sin, he is patient with us. He holds back his vengeance. He waits for us to repent. He doesn’t slam dunk us the moment we step out of line. He is “slow to anger.” He has control over his wrath. He gives us many chances to repent. When we place our trust in Christ, God in his grace gives us what we don’t deserve—eternal life. God in his mercy does not give us what we do deserve.