Walking by faith isn’t easy!

One of the most persistent questions that Christians ask is about the apparent ‘prosperity’ of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous. We want to believe that there is a direct line of cause and effect –  if we do good things and live in obedience to the Lord, that He will spare us pain and difficulty. We wonder, or at least I do, why He allows those who are cruel and oppressive to flourish, why He does not strike them down in judgment! Following the same impulse, we are often too quick to judge those who suffer, concluding that they must have done something to ‘deserve’ it or that their faith was flawed so that they are unable to access God’s provision or power.  Our logic says, “If you are suffering, you must have created the circumstances that are causing it.”  Sometimes that is true. However, when we dig deeper, we often cannot see an immediate ‘cause and effect.’  We find only mystery.

Habakkuk, the preacher who was a contemporary of Jeremiah, living in Jerusalem about 600 years before the time of Jesus, wrote about living by faith. He pondered the question of fairness and God’s will, wondering why Judah could ignore her God and not be punished. When the Lord showed him that the Assyrians would come and conquer Judah, he wondered why God would use a nation even more wicked than Judah to bring correction to His people. From his prayers and thoughts came a little book that shines bright for us with a message capsulated in this passage -  "the righteous will live by his faith— the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:4,20, NIV)

How often have we prayed something like this, or at least felt these thoughts rising in our minds? "How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence is everywhere!” I cry, but you do not come to save." (Habakkuk 1:2, NLT)  Living in faith is not easy and it never has been!  He continues his prayer for understanding this way. "God, you’re from eternity, aren’t you? Holy God, we aren’t going to die, are we? God, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work? Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline? But you can’t be serious! You can’t condone evil! So why don’t you do something about this? Why are you silent now? This outrage! Evil men swallow up the righteous and you stand around and watch!" (Habakkuk 1:12-13, The Message)  I feel his emotions, don’t you?

How, then are God’s people different, are we just left to struggle with our emotions, giving up to ‘fate’ and resigned to endure as best we can?  That is an incomplete understanding of faith. The submission that grows out of faith is not the same as throwing in the towel and walking away from the fight!  Faith leads us to acceptance of God’s will and to hope that is anchored securely on His assurance that justice will be done.  Jesus said it simply this way – “The first will be last, the last will be first.” How will this be? He teaches that  "All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world." (Matthew 25:32-34, NLT)

My late father often reminded me of the importance of faithfulness with this homely little phrase – “Remember, son, God’s payday is not necessarily this Friday.”  Both reward and judgment are sometimes out of sight in our limited vision, but they are assured by the eternal purpose and promise of our Father!

The 3^rd chapter of Habakkuk is rich with meaning and encouragement. He writes the words that reflect our earnest hope to see things made right and our determination to wait on the Lord. Take this word from the Word today to heart and pray for faith to grow strong, faith that stabilizes you, that keeps you serving, loving, and looking for the Kingdom to come.

O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid;

O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years!

In the midst of the years make it known;

    In wrath remember mercy.

A Hymn of Faith

Though the fig tree may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,

And there be no herd in the stalls—

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength;

He will make my feet like deer’s feet,

And He will make me walk on my high hills.

Habakkuk 3:2; 17-19 (NKJV)

_______________

Blessed Assurance

Blessed assurance Jesus is mine

O what a foretaste of glory divine

Heir of salvation purchase of God

Born of His Spirit washed in His blood

Perfect submission perfect delight

Visions of rapture now burst on my sight

Angels descending bring from above

Echoes of mercy whispers of love

Perfect submission all is at rest

I in my Savior am happy and blest

Watching and waiting looking above

Filled with His goodness lost in His love

This is my story this is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

This is my story this is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

Fanny Jane Crosby | Phoebe Palmer Knapp

© Words: Public Domain

God has a deadline

When we speak of a ‘deadline’ we are talking about a time limit. For example, a student must turn in his paper by a certain date, a deadline.  A news reporter has to finish writing his article by a certain time, a deadline, in order to get his work into today’s paper.  The word appears to have come into use right at the time of the Civil War.  A line was created on a battlefield and when the approaching troops crossed it, the order was to fire upon them with deadly force. Some suggest that it was also used for a line of stakes placed around prisons marking out a perimeter. If any prisoner crossed that boundary, guards were given orders to ‘shoot to kill’ hence, a ‘deadline.’ 

Nahum, a preacher of the Old Testament, was moved by the Spirit to lay down a ‘deadline’ for a sinful nation. Nineveh, Assyria’s capital, was a city of bloodshed, the conquering empire a particularly brutal one in a time of terrible brutality. The Assyrians overcame cities, slaughtered the noble classes, and deported much of the rest of the population. They then moved other conquered people into the area. This practice disrupted social order and destroyed the ability of their victims to organize resistance since they did not share a heritage, a language, or a religion! The empire had grown increasingly powerful, enriched by the plunder seized by their armies. 

Nahum declared that God was not blind to the cruelty, to their greed, and their wickedness. “I am your enemy!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Your chariots will soon go up in smoke. Your young men will be killed in battle. Never again will you plunder conquered nations. The voices of your proud messengers will be heard no more.” What sorrow awaits Nineveh, the city of murder and lies! She is crammed with wealth and is never without victims." (Nahum 2:13-3:1, NLT)

As I read those ancient words, my heart was stirred, too.  A delusion has fallen over us that God is either unseeing or that He is impotent, incapable of bringing real justice. We go about life with so little regard for His way, His will. 

In Psalm 73, a godly writer talks about the prosperity of the wicked and how it often appears that they are ‘getting away with it.’  "Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” This is what the wicked are like— always carefree, they increase in wealth.”  This man is tempted to join them saying, “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence." (Psalm 73:9-13, NIV)  But, then he humbles himself in worship and realizes, like Nahum, that God still has a deadline, though not always one we can see with our limited vision.  He reflects,  "When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!" (Psalm 73:16-19, NIV)

Oh my fellow Christian, have you grown weary of holding onto the ways of the Lord?  Are you tempted to believe that there is no justice, no reward, no accountability – that God is unseeing of the evil of our time?  Let the words of the ancient preacher remind you that He does see and that He has drawn a deadline.  Nahum declared - "The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet." (Nahum 1:3, NLT)

I weep for my country, seeing our injustice, our greed, our willingness to take from the poor, to use violence to accomplish our national will.  

 I weep for those individuals who are ignoring God, assuming that they can do as they please without consequence. 

I pray earnestly for myself!  "Lord, keep me faithful. Help me to love You so intensely that I am not tempted to walk near the deadline!"

Here is a word from the Word.

"We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins." (Romans 3:22-24, NLT)

"But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:22-23, NLT)

Have you received His gift of life?
Are you living with your centered on ‘those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life?’ 

Or, are you pushing the deadline of Heaven?

Those hard words, why must I read them?

In the revivalist tradition of my youth, I heard many sermons on the coming wrath of God!  Fervent preachers with red faces, sweat on their brow, and a big black Bible on their right hand scared Hell out me, or at least they tried hard to do so. Many of those messages included a great deal more heat than light, aiming to move my heart, it seemed, more than to instruct my mind. Youth revivals, in my recollection, dealt much with ‘lust’ and ‘worldliness’ which was anything to do with fashion, entertainment, and ‘rock and roll.’  I cannot recall a single message about loving the poor, other than to tell me that I should be faithful to try to get them ‘saved.’ Nor can I recall any sermons that challenged me to think about real justice or my attitudes towards those of other races or religions. As a result, in my youth, God was a fearsome Being to me, not a Father who loved me and wanted me to find Him an Advocate for a rich life of purpose. Thankfully, His grace led me to discover that He was more than I had heard about and to know the joy of walking with Him.

Some people think that the ‘minor’ prophets, those preachers whose words are recorded in the short books near the end of the of the Old Testament, are just like the revivalists I heard in my youth. “Jerry, I do not read them because they are so negative." 

I invite you to take a second look. Yes, they can be difficult! Why?
First, their messages are set in a context of history that is largely unknown to most.
Second, they write about judgment and wrath a lot!   

For that reason many Christians skip from Isaiah to Matthew in their Bible reading. I was drawn to those preachers recently, opening my Scripture each morning to that obscure place. And, I am discovering, anew, that their messages are spot on for me, in 2017.  Yes, it takes some work to find the treasures in the text, but they are there and the Holy Spirit speaks to me in them.

Micah preached to God’s people in a time of prosperity before the first Assyrian invasion. He warned them about the inevitability of God’s judgment, that their neglect of devotion would have consequence. And what specifically did he challenge?  Pride, oppression of the poor, bribery that corrupted justice, and ritual religion that did not engage them in true worship! Sound like things that plague the Church today to you? Sure does to me. 

The people heard Micah’s sermons and told him to stop. “Don’t preach such stuff. Nothing bad will happen to us. Talk like this to the family of Jacob? Does God lose his temper? Is this the way he acts? Isn’t he on the side of good people? Doesn’t he help those who help themselves?”  (Micah 2:6-7, The Message)  He was unafraid, trusting God’s Spirit and responds to the critics - "But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin. Hear this, … who despise justice and distort all that is right." (Micah 3:8-9, NIV)

In one telling passage, his sermon strikes this note of outrage. "Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder, priests mass-market their teaching, prophets preach for high fees, All the while posturing and pretending dependence on God: “We’ve got God on our side. He’ll protect us from disaster.” Because of people like you, Zion will be turned back into farmland, Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble, and instead of the Temple on the mountain, a few scraggly scrub pines." (Micah 3:11-12, The Message)  Is this God’s view of the Church in 2017?  Sounds familiar to me. “God bless America,” preachers tell their congregations while ignoring the glaring sins of our nation – our greed, our broken ‘justice’ system, our economic inequities, our empty civil religion.

In a passage probably best known we learn that the Lord wants more than our money, more than our sacrifices to appease Him. He desires to know us, to transform our ways. The preacher captures me in these words. "What can we bring to the Lord? What kind of offerings should we give him? Should we bow before God with offerings of yearling calves? Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins? No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:6-8, NLT)  Christ Jesus calls us to salvation and invites us to live in the power of the Spirit. Our faith is not invisible nor is it without result.  Yes, we too, must allow Him to make us holy, compassionate, and in a daily conversation with our Father.  Amen, Micah!

Finally, some cannot see the whole of his sermon, put off by the dire predictions of destruction.  But, his message was not all thunderous wrath. After calling for change of heart, Micah reminds them repeatedly of God’s grace. "Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me." (Micah 7:7-8, NIV)  "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy." (Micah 7:18, NIV) What a beautiful promise.  I will rise!

Here is a word from the Word. "You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work." (2 Timothy 3:15-17, NLT)

 Lord, bless Your Word to us, I pray. Amen.