365 Reflections

We cannot go beyond what God allows, even in our moments of rebellion. This is the lesson the people of Israel needed to learn while in Babylon. They ended up there due to the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar, and it’s likely they despised every part of that experience. However, their presence in Babylon was part of God’s plan and foreknowledge; He was placing His people under discipline. Despite this, they sought to escape the path that the Lord had set for them. In response, Ezekiel is given a parable about their rebellion against the Lord’s discipline in Ezekiel 17. The parable goes like this.  A great eagle, symbolizing King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, plucks the topmost shoot of a cedar tree, which represents Jehoiachin, the king of Judah. He then plants it in fertile soil in Babylon. From this land, a seed grows into a vine, representing Zedekiah, a puppet king placed by Babylon. This vine spreads low, symbolizing dependence and submission to Babylon.  Then, another great eagle...

The Bible is relatable because it is filled with the ups and downs, the hopes and miseries of life. Jeremiah is a case in point. The faithful young prophet who resisted God's calling at first and became a stalwart of truth for his generation rode the waves of trouble and triumph through Israel's last years as an independent monarchy. Ultimately, he was in Babylon in captivity, lamenting the pain of his life's work.  Lamentations 3:1–3 (ESV) I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; 2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. An unnamed man describes his misery for the next 20 verses in Lamentations 3. He speaks of his physical maladies, his bitterness, and the sense that God is no longer interested in hearing his prayers. He talks of God's attack on his life and feels no endurance for the struggle. Is this Jeremiah? Or is Jeremiah personifying the men of ...

Trouble has come to Israel. And in Lamentations, Jeremiah pulls no punches about what has happened. The Lord Himself has taken her down. Lamentations 2 rehearses the nature of her judgment as nothing less than God's active wrath poured out upon His own chosen people.  Lamentations 2:5 (ESV) The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. When we are disciplined for sin, it can seem like God is our enemy. And let us not forget that Lamentations is the cry of Jeremiah's heart over what has transpired. He expresses what the people perceive. They felt abandoned by God but it was they who abandoned Him. Sin carries severe consequences.   Lamentations 2:11–12 (ESV) My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because i...

The discipline of the Lord is not pleasant. Scripture affirms this in Hebrews 12.  Hebrews 12:11 (ESV) For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Yes, that "fruit of righteousness" is to come, but the admission is clear. Before the fruit, there's a lot of hurt.  The difference between the Lord's discipline and how life can shape us is simple: God is 100% in control of the agents of your discipline. And when the work is finished, the Lord will do with them or it as He pleases. This is what Jeremiah taught the exiles who suffered mass deportation under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.  Jeremiah 50 opens after a long list of proclamations of woe against Israel, Judah, and the nations surrounding her, each of which states clearly that their time of judgment had come at the hands of Babylon, and this was God's doing.  Now, it's Babylon...

Let me ask you a question. Do you write things down that God has done or how scripture has spoken to you over the years? You should It's in the Bible. We must record God's actions in our lives. We must keep track of God's leading and guiding through the Word. Jeremiah wrote things down, just as Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah did. Just as Moses did. Just as they were commanded to do.  Jeremiah 30:2–3 (ESV) “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you. 3 For behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the LORD, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.” The people of Israel were doomed to exile. God wanted a record of His promised restoration written down so they might know He is reliable and faithful. He never gives up on His people. I think we all suffer from short-term memory concerning...

Contrary to popular adages, God doesn't strike sinners with lightning bolts. He lets their own choices reveal their missteps and lets them feel the pain.  Jeremiah 2:19 (ESV) Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord GOD of hosts. God indicts the evil of Israel by stating something we often neglect to mention in the Christian faith. Our own evil will cost us great pains. When we turn from the Lord, we are the ones who suffer. That was Israel's condition and it is so often the condition of our own lives as well. Jeremiah 2:21 (ESV) Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? God did everything necessary to make Israel a wonderfully fruitful land. But now they are unrecognizable. This too warns us against letting sin in our life. It deteriorates us inwardly.  Th...

Want to experience the LOVE of God? Let Him discipline you.  I know... not the answer you wanted. But it's the answer scripture gives.  Proverbs 3:11–12 (ESV) My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, 12 for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. That word "loves" really strikes me. For we are loved in the discipline God brings into our lives. Notice the word is not "punishment" but "discipline". What is God doing with you? Making you more disciplined.  Discipline is love to us because we don't typically understand what really needs to change in us. We think we do, but we don't. We want external fixes or temporal changes in condition, but God knows what really needs to go for our sanctification and change. And a part of our sanctification is the sanctification of our understanding His process of sanctification.  Discipline is love because God is not letting our foolishness ru...

The problem with some advice is that it sounds good at the time, maybe even true at that time but it's far to simple and off base in the end. This is the frustration we have exploring the advice Job's friends give him. And we are only into the first speech given by Eliphaz in Job 5. Now he says some true things here: Job 5:17–18 (ESV) “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. 18 For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal. All true and several other scriptures back this up. Now Eliphaz assumes that the bad in Job's life is from the Almighty (a key name for God in the book of Job). But there's something we've already seen that the characters have not. Job's suffering is not from God but from the devil. And one of life's worst mistakes is to attribute to God what the devil does and even worse - attribute to the devil what God does.  It's the mistake of absolutism when it comes ...

Imagine God puts someone you know to death because you and they disregarded His Word. How would you respond? Bitter and resentful toward Him? Would you doubt His goodness? Would you run from Him because you see Him as unfair? Many people respond that way every day.  Not David.  After the Uzzah incident, David was humbled and chastened. He was, at first, afraid of God.  1 Chronicles 13:12 (ESV) And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, “How can I bring the ark of God home to me?” But then his heart opened to what God was teaching him through that awful moment. He needed to listen closely to the Lord if he was going to be in charge of the Lord's people. And David did. We talked about this in previous posts. How David listened intently to God as the Philistines attacked him repeatedly. We then noted how David searched the scriptures for God's prescription on transporting the Ark and establishing proper worship in Israel.  By this chapter, all is accomplished. D...

Of all the people you would think could have resisted the temptation to forfeit his place in the world in exchange for sinful, cheap and costly decisions, Solomon would be at the top of that list. Solomon BUILT the temple and prayed one of Israel's most famous prayers over it. He sacrifices 10s of thousands of animals to the Lord. He covered everything used in the Temple with gold. He was filled with heavenly wisdom. But STILL, he fell into sin. But he falls tragically and demonstrably into the hook of sin in 1 Kings 11. The lesson for us is simple: anyone, no matter their education, wisdom, insight or spirituality can get seduced and suckered by sin. As the old puritan writer put it: Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. Solomon's sin will cost him dearly and this chapter outlines important truths for Solomon and us concerning our place is God's plan. 1 Kings 11:14–17 (ESV) And the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He was of the ro...

What happens to an undisciplined child? Absalom is a case study: 2 Samuel 14:25 (ESV) Now in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. We begin to see the character Absalom emerge in several features. First, the text teaches us of his appearance. The words, "there was no blemish in him" are striking particularly for an ancient audience. This was supreme natural beauty. His hair is also mentioned by its weight and also his habit of cutting it every year. Was this a country-wide event? We are drawn in by these details to imagine Absalom as supremely handsome and utterly self-absorbed. I mean, who weighs dead hair? Looks can carry weight for someone in the world. We live in a country enamored by beauty. Often times we let physical beauty mask other deficiencies in a person's character. This is the case for Absalom as the next passage will...

Saul and Jonathan are dead. David's line to the throne should be clean right? Nope. It's going to take years. There's a LOT of political allegiances in the way and many people with special interests are going to do almost anything to keep the status quo and fight back David's ascension to power. Sounds like the American government... David is a threat to everyone who followed Saul to death. He's unpredictable. What will he do with those who supported a man out to kill him all those years? Surely, it can't be good. In haste, Ish-Bosheth is MADE king by Abner, the commander of Saul's troops. Abner had been with Saul at least since the Goliath event. He brought David to Saul after Goliath was dead. He was rebuked for not protecting Saul by David when he had the opportunity to kill him. You have to know that Abner had a vested interest in Saul's lineage keeping the kingdom. So he takes the fourth son of Saul and makes him king as soon as Saul and Jona...

Exodus 9:6 (ESV)   And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. Exodus 9:11 (ESV)  And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. Exodus 9:26 (ESV) Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail. Exodus 10:15 (ESV)  They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. Exodus 10:23 (ESV) They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. The recurring message of the final plagues is the repeated theme that while Egypt suffered the wrath of God, t...

Psalm 6 is a prayer from David to God that the Lord not be harsh in chastisement. David knew he deserved worse but asked God for mercy... Psalm 6:1–3 (ESV) O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. 3 My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long? One of the worst attitudes of prayer we could have is to believe we are entitled to something from God. The name-it-claim-it-mentality we may have heard about just isn't the manner in which the Scriptures implore us to come to God. David comes humbly. He fully knows God would be right to punish him harshly for his actions. But he seeks the mercy of a loving Father. Whatever it is that David has done, it has robbed him of sleep and rest: Psalm 6:6–7 (ESV) I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. 7 My eye wastes away because of grief...

Admittedly, every church has it's problems. Corinth is no exception. We discussed that in the last post that even though they were undeniably gifted they had serious failings Paul needed to correct. In the Old Testament "epistles" (we call them the Prophets) the nation was often rebuked for sins followed by a promise of restoration. Consider one of the all-time favorite memory verses in the church: Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. We love to put that verse on our coffee mugs, t-shirts and bumper stickers.  But the context of those words is anything but good. The nation is about to be carted off to exile, their temple burned, their homes ravaged, their land turned over to a godless nation at the whim of a dictator. They have not listened to God and they are to be corrected. But AFTER the rebuke, Jeremiah brings the promise. God still has great plans for t...

The church need not fight the moral battles of it's present generation.  Our job is to worry about the ones the Lord adds to the church. In Luke 17, after teaching a frustrating bunch of Pharisees about living in the light of eternity, Jesus turns to his disciples.  He gives them great advice. Luke 17:3–4 (ESV) Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” We talk a lot about forgiveness.  But what about the first part?  "If your brother sins, rebuke him?" I don't find many Christians doing this.  We want to be "nice" to everyone.  Sometimes nice isn't the appropriate game plan in the Lord's house.  Jesus cares about the purity of his house.  The word for "rebuke" is a powerful word in the Greek.  It's the same word used by Mark when Jesus calm...

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11 ESV) This is war.  And the problem is not just the devil, the problem our flesh. The old carnal nature of our bodies.   The answer is abstinence.  Not easy but oh so necessary.   What does Paul say? Romans 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.  There is no doubt the only solution is to say no to what our flesh wants. To remember that every time you say yes to the flash it's like you're choosing to lose a part of your soul. For that is what Peter says, the passions of our flesh wage war against our soul.  What does James say? James 4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?  James give this a good clue here. He tells us that our passions are the result of looking at what other peopl...