Snarling Lions!

I love those stories that tell about someone overcoming hardship, turning trouble into triumph. I cheer for underdogs, love when the little guy wins, get misty-eyed when love is sweet!  I am also a realist who knows only too well that our world is not always fair, that good guys do not always finish first.  But, my faith in God teaches me that God can turn the darkest night into morning’s glory, that He can take my worst mistake and redeem it to shape me into the image of Christ Jesus.

Jesus made a promise to us- when His kingdom comes the last will be first, the suffering will find healing.  The Great Reversal is shaped like this:  “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth." (Matthew 5:2-5, NLT)  "God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs." (Matthew 5:10, NLT)  However, I also know that the plot of ‘His-story’ does not always follow the line I desire. 

We need to know the story of faithfulness- God’s and Daniel’s – that is told in that part of the Bible.  It’s the grand account of Daniel in the lion’s den.  When I was about 4 years of age my Sunday School teacher told us the story using cut-out pictures pressed onto a flannel board.  We heard about Daniel’s faithfulness to God, about his prayers, and the terrible people who hated him so much that they conspired to have him tossed to the lions.   She told it with such passion that my little heart pounded with images filling my imagination and a need to know the answer to my question -  “does that good man gets eaten by those hungry lions?”   God did shut the mouths of the lions and Daniel emerged from the danger like a conquering hero.  “Yea!” I cheered.  Faith grew in me and I learned to trust the Lord.

But, now a long way from Sunday School, I see another even more powerful lesson in that story, one that helps me to keep faith when life is full of mystery and pain. God allowed Daniel to enter the lion’s den for a greater purpose. Temporarily, evil seemed to win. He spend a long night alone with lion’s snarling and snapping an arm’s length away!  

Daniel’s integrity was so notable, his faith so unquestionable, that even the pagan king shared his hope! "So at last the king gave orders for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to him, “May your God, whom you worship continually, rescue you.” (Daniel 6:16, NLT)  "Very early the next morning, the king hurried out to the lions’ den. When he got there, he called out in anguish, “Daniel, servant of the living God! Was your God, whom you worship continually, able to rescue you from the lions?” (Daniel 6:19-20, NLT)   When the old man answers from the dim recesses of that pit, the king rejoiced and had him pulled out, returned to a place of honor in the kingdom.

When I was a kid I thought the hero of this story was Daniel, but the glory goes to – yes, Almighty God Who gave the miracle of deliverance. God allowed His faithful servant to go through an awful ordeal but the night had a purpose!

Are you living in the lion’s den of life right now?
Has the Lord, your loving Father, allowed you to live with suffering, or defeat, or circumstances that defy your best efforts to turn them around?

Pray for rescue!  But, also remember that it may be His will to leave you there for a long night, for His own purposes.  “Come on, Jerry, that is not fair.”  Yes, I understand that and I weep with you. While I wait, I will trust and pray that my life will reveal genuine faith, that I remain steady in trust, hopeful and committed to serving Him.

Sometimes the greater victory is not the one we seek.  Peter wrote to the first generation of Christians who were being intensely persecuted. His words would not go over well in our American churches where we like the “Sunday School” version of life where good guys always win and every difficulty finds immediate relief when God’s people pray.  He teaches something very different – "So if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you." (1 Peter 4:19, NLT)  That is a hard truth but so true.  God does not always take us around the hardship. Sometimes He allows those things to reveal Himself to us and through us in greater ways.

Here is a word from the Word. Let it inspire you to hold onto God even through the night in the lion’s den.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4, NIV) "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." (James 1:12, NIV)  

Lord, increase our faith, keep us steady, let us know Your Presence near, even in the lion’s dens of life. Amen

(Video of this blog at this link)

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Goodness Of God

I love You Lord

Oh Your mercy never fails me

All my days

I've been held in Your hands

From the moment that I wake up

Until I lay my head

I will sing of the goodness of God

 

All my life You have been faithful

All my life You have been so so good

With every breath that I am able

I will sing of the goodness of God

 

I love Your voice

You have led me through the fire

In darkest night

You are close like no other

I've known You as a father

I've known You as a friend

I have lived in the goodness of God

 

Your goodness is running after

It’s running after me

Your goodness is running after

It’s running after me

With my life laid down

I’m surrendered now

I give You everything

Your goodness is running after

It's running after me

 

Ben Fielding | Brian Johnson | Ed Cash | Jason Ingram | Jenn Johnson

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CCLI License # 810055

Daniel and my faith

 

We look towards the future and sometimes it’s like a dense bank of fog. We may ask, “Lord, are you still in charge? Are we dangerously adrift on the currents of time?”   It may seem so, but let me affirm what I know, by faith, to be true:

He IS Lord.
He IS our Savior.
He IS the Victor over sin, death, and Hell.

One of the Bible’s interesting characters is Daniel, a Jewish scholar taken to Babylon to serve in the Empire’s court at the destruction of Jerusalem by Assyria. Most of us remember the story of his overnight stay in the lion’s den after he defied the king’s order not to pray.  The old man, who had been a court counselor to several emperor’s found himself afoul of court politics and a law designed to bring about his end.

He bravely trusted God and when the king came to see what had happened to him, he reported:  "My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, O king.”" (Daniel 6:22, NIV)  It’s great drama and faith-building. 

In chapters 7 and 8, God gives Daniel a vision that is weird and wonderful. It is about 4 strange creatures and we learn that each represents an empire in the flow of history that affected Jerusalem in the centuries leading up to the coming of Jesus. It’s incredible! How could this man see the decline of Assyria, the rise of the Persian empire, the subsequent rise of the Grecian empire that would dissolve into 4 smaller empires at Alexander’s death?  How could he know of the vast reach of the Roman Empire?

He could not naturally  but God revealed these things to him so that we could know He controls history. "‘But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.’" (Daniel 7:26-27, NIV)

Many of Daniel’s visions are complex and hard to understand. Some of the meanings elude us and invite speculation that sometimes runs wild. We do well to approach them with humility. 
The message for us today is this- God rules and His plans will be fulfilled. 

Is your heart troubled this day? Are you apprehensive about your future or about the future of the world in which you live?  I encourage you to renew faith in the One who reigns, the eternal God. At the end of another apocalyptic book in the Bible, the Revelation, Jesus declares: “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." (Revelation 22:12-13, NIV)  We are secure in Him, our destiny held in His trusted grip. Will you trust Him?

Yes, when the End comes, when God welcomed His people home, we will join in the song of the saints. This is the word from the Word.

"Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a huge crowd, or the roar of mighty ocean waves, or the crash of loud thunder:
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and honor him.
For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself.
She is permitted to wear the finest white linen.” (Fine linen represents the good deeds done by the people of God.)" (Revelation 19:6-8, NLT)

Are you ready to see the King?

(Video of this blog at this link)

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Until Then

My heart can sing
When I pause to remember
A heartache here
Is but a stepping stone
Along a trail
That's winding always upward
This troubled world
Is not my final home

But until then
My heart will go on singing
Until then
With joy I'll carry on
Until the day
My eyes behold the city
Until the day
God calls me home

The things of earth
Will dim and lose their value
If we recall
They're borrowed for a while
And things of earth
That cause the heart to tremble
Remembered there
Will only bring a smile

 This weary world
With all its toil and struggle
May take its toll
Of misery and strife
The soul of man
Is like a waiting falcon
When it's released
It's destined for the skies

 

Stuart Hamblen

© 1958 Hamblen Music Company (Admin. by ClearBox Rights, LLC)

CCLI License # 81003

She stood before her King

 

For the last week the world has watched the elaborate ceremony surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth. It’s fascinating to watch tradition and see the real human pain that peeks out here and there, a tear on the cheek of a Prince’s face, a drawn look of genuine grief momentarily in view. Death is the great ‘enemy’ of humanity, separating us from those we love, making us shudder.  My thoughts have turned often to eternity, Heaven, and home.

We all, though we try to think about, live in the ‘valley of the shadow of death.’  When I was young, largely untouched by death in my personal circle, I smiled indulgently at those people who spoke in what I called 'Heaven talk.'  'Why do those old Christians get all misty eyed and claim to want to be in a place where they have never been?'  I wondered.  There was so much living to do, so much engagement right here, right now.

But, now, I sing the songs of heaven, too.   I cherish these words of Jesus -  "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3, NIV)

I love the songs that remind us of the promise of God, too.  In ages past, when enslaved, African Americans, who were subjected to awful lives, who lived close to sorrow, kept their spirits alive with songs of hope. They sang of God's sweet home. Songs like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "There is a Balm in Gilead" and "Marching Up the Heavenly Road" and "Gonna Shout All Over God's Heaven" sustained their hearts with hope they were denied in this world.

My Pentecostal ancestors, people who were generally poor, who struggled to scratch out a living, sang of Heaven, too.  I grew up singing – “When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, when we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory!"  Those words were and still are a declaration of faith.

Heaven is not just a dream. It is home!  Seven years ago, at this very season, I sat with my dying wife, who was living in that twilight kind of consciousness of the dying, and I reminded her (and myself!) “Honey, there is no fear because you are going home, home, home;   no more moving, no more friends left behind, no more storms, temptations, or sorrows – home!”  The Bible says "All these people died still believing what God had promised them. . . .  They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:13-16, NLT)

Peter teaches us that when we become intent on trying to make ourselves too much at home here, we can lose sight of the lasting hope. "Dear friends, I urge you, (live) as aliens and strangers in the world. " (1 Peter 2:10-12, NIV)  He who sets his heart on Heaven will be the most effective servant of God here on earth. He will not waste time trying to hold onto what will inevitably be torn from his grasp. He will not attempt to build a kingdom here, knowing that his reward is secure in an Eternal Kingdom. He will not fear – Hell, Storm, Devil, or Death – or whatever may come into his life. Why? Because he knows that this life is a pilgrimage, only the prelude to the Story written by His Eternal God. He know he is not HOME yet, but that there is a home ready for him.

Whether we are a queen or a commoner, a rich man or poor man, famous or obscure – we share this:  we will stand before the King of Heaven.  That moment need not fill us with fear IF we have received the gift of His love.  Have you trusted Him, friend, simply and in faith, to be your Advocate on that day?  Then, sing of Heaven, anticipating the moment that time ends and you step into the unfathomable wonders of God’s presence forever. 

The word from Word are full of faith, reflecting the hope of a dying man. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his glorious return." (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NLT) Is this YOUR hope, too?

(Video of this blog at this link)

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When We All Get To Heaven

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus
Sing His mercy and His grace
In the mansions bright and blessed
He'll prepare for us a place 

When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory

While we walk the pilgrim's pathway
Clouds will overspread the sky
But when trav'ling days are over
Not a shadow not a sigh 

Let us then be true and faithful
Trusting serving every day
Just one glimpse of Him in glory
Will the toils of life repay

Onward to the prize before us
Soon His glorious beauty we will behold
Soon the pearly gates will open
We will tread the streets of gold

 

Public Domain
Eliza Edmunds Stites Hewitt