365 Reflections

Jehu, king of Israel was a man on fire. The Lord appointed him to wipe out the sin of Israel and he acted with intense zeal in accomplishing that task. At one point he boasted to an associate:  “Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD.”  2 Kings 10:16.  Yet there is a lesson for the modern church in the life of Jehu. Let us first recount his expedition of vengeance.  Once anointed Jehu unleashed a torrent of God's wrath on the unfaithful royal families of both southern and northern Israel. Joram (Ahab's son), Jezebel, and all 70 of Ahab's sons were killed. He piled the heads of Ahab's sons at the gate in a proud display of his accomplishment. Ahaziah, the king of Judah and all his relatives were slaughtered at Jehu's command. Finally, Jehu coordinated a fake Baal worship ceremony in order to bring all the Baal worshippers into one place and he commanded his men to slaughter all of them as well. You could say Jehu was the John Wick of the Bible.  Yet in spite ...

Exodus 7:10–13 (ESV)   So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 11 Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. 12 For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. An interesting thing happens when Moses and Aaron start to do the works of god before Pharaoh. His magicians do the same things by their "secret" arts. We often don't think about this, but the Bible never denies the powers of evil to do the supernatural at times yet with limitation. For the magicians in Egypt will not get past the second plague (frogs) in their evil practices. Notice here, the snake of Aaron's rod swallows up the snake of the magicians.  ...

It's not bad to have God defeat your self-righteousness. In fact, it's the only way to truly come to know who Him. Joseph's brothers have returned to Egypt with the extra monies they owed from their first trip for grain. They have received their brother Simeon back. They have dined at Joseph's table and enjoyed the most powerful man's company in the most powerful nation on Earth. Now they set out to return home with more grain they were certain to pay for. No doubt they carried with them a sense of self-righteousness about how well they handled this tense situation. But that was all about to change. The night before, Joseph sets up a ruse. He has their money replaced in their sacks along with the new grain AND he has his silver cup placed in Benjamin's sack. The brothers leave the next morning and are instantly hunted down to determine who stole the cup. Listen to their self-righteous plea: Genesis 44:7–9 (ESV) They said to him, “Why does my lord speak ...

You know the hardest thing about preaching to Americans? Is the fact that most of us are pretty decent people. That the system of America, for the most part, rewards you for being upright and moral and kind and compassionate and helpful to other people. And that's what makes it so hard to preach the gospel to Americans. Because most Americans believe they are good enough for God. And nothing could be further from the truth. Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 2 to remind them of their status before Christ saves them. He says: Ephesians 2:1-3 (ESV)   And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  You were "dead ...