Following Jesus Son of God …

This is really a follow up to the previous post; just a thought that impressed itself on me from the other.

• (Isaiah 7.7a NIV) Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says …

Amazing how sometimes two or three words, or sometimes only one, God uses to clarify who he is and his desired involvement in my life.  Even that statement captures me.  God wants to be involved in my life.

But away from the detour …

Here I am speaking of one word that we might want to remember.

Yet …

Screaming, shouting, noise, business as usual, this political party says, that political party argues, this country rattles it’s saber, that country threatens retaliation …

The signals we receive from our daily news deliver desperation and foreboding …

Yet … God talks too.

God speaks, through his Spirit, through his words.  He has been repeating his message with deft accuracy and consistency for thousands of years.

To a dark world he promises light.

And to you and me.  He speaks to us.

It’s likely you are hearing all the other stuff, conservative, liberal, and every whack job in between.

But are you listening when God speaks to your heart.

All the stuff going on, “Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says …”

Words that last forever. That’s what we need to hear.

God who is eternal and almighty.  That’s who we need to listen to.

Medicine to our souls; our Rock in the midst of turbulence, our salvation, our High Tower.

God Rules!  The world drools!

He is not called the Sovereign LORD for nothing.

“They” plan, plot and threaten, but God says …

• (Isaiah 7.7a NIV) Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says …

Judah’s enemies were plotting and threatening, but God told their king:  Don’t let two pieces of smoldering firewood discourage you.

• (Isaiah 7.4-6 NIV)
  Say to him [Ahaz], “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 ‘Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.'”

“Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart.”

This is the Sovereign LORD talking.  He spoke words of assurance to his people then in times of great duress; he does the same for his people today, even now, even at this moment.

Can you hear him?

Can you hear him when the trouble of this world or your personal struggles threaten to roll over you like a truck?

Do we face genuine threats, the “fierce anger” of our enemies?  Yes!  That is not the question.

The question is will we listen to the threats or will we listen to the Sovereign LORD of all creation, seen and unseen?

So listen to this, my friend.  God rules, so be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart.

• (Isaiah 7.7a NIV) Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says …

• Hebrews 2.5a-8b NIV
  What is man that you are mindful of him,
  the son of man that you care for him?
  You made him a little lower than the angels;
  you crowned him with glory and honor
  and put everything under his feet.

The writer’s incredulity grabs me …

And if we really think about it, we too should be scratching our heads.  You know how you are; I know how I am.  How could God be talking about us?

Hasn’t he observed life on the planet lately?

Don’t misunderstand.  I believe God as he tells us who we are and what we are about.  I believe the verse above.

But even our own hearts deceive us per Jeremiah 17.9; deceitful and desperately wicked.

That’s us, and that is who God is talking about.

And …
Everything under our feet?  We are in charge of all this?

That humbles me as much as it puzzles me.

But here is what I hold onto:  God is God and I (thankfully) am not!

Sometimes we try to control so much; we reach and grasp and try to hang onto things and manipulate life.

Be thankful that you can’t.

Take great strength and courage in:  God is God!

He rules; we bow; that’s the way of the universe!

Amen!

• (Esther 1.1a) “This is what happened during the time of Xerxes …”

“This is what happened.”  I sat down to read my Bible yesterday evening and that was the first thing I read – “This is what happened.”

And I thought – God’s word still has me.  I haven’t gotten over it; haven’t lost the wonder; the words still capture me.

I have in my hands the words of God.  Amazing grace!

You are probably familiar with the line in movie Jerry Maguire – “You had me at hello.”

Well, yesterday evening, God had me at “This is what happened.”  With complete confidence I can know what happened, I can believe that God is speaking through the written word of these events in Esther.

Total accuracy and reliability of events that occurred almost 2,500 years ago.

No rewriting history, no revisionism, no academic fraud where the research will one day be exposed.

Believe it – “This is what happened.”

For all the things I make a mess of; my sinfulness, my sometimes lack of faith, general stupidity.

I get this one.  I bow and I tremble when God talks.

And I believe.

When he says “this is what happened,” I know I have an account of events that not only stand the scrutiny of time and criticism, but these words stand forever.

Thank you, Father.

My friend this evening …

I could tell he was happy to hear from me as soon as he realized who was calling.  I could hear it in his voice.  You just know.

I thought he would be but I wasn’t sure.  You see – we have been through some adversity over the last few months.

Not the time to tell that story, but just the little brief account from tonight.

Our friendship is better because we struggled through some problems together, didn’t really like what the other one was doing but both of us genuinely wanted to honor God.

And this was big stuff.  Big enough to easily end a friendship.

But it didn’t.

And that is why as I was  a smidgen apprehensive when I called, his welcoming spirit was so refreshing.

Okay, so I’m going to bed now.  Just thought you might want to know that the best stuff isn’t in all the initial pleasantries and introductions.

You have to keep going; wade through the mess.  And then you hear “so glad to hear from you” and it rings as true as the stars in the sky.

How do I “just say no” to ungodliness?

Grace.

• (Titus 2:11-12 NIV)  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It [grace] teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Grace.  God has sent his favor with the express intent to teach us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions.

Which conversely means that God sends grace to teach us to “say Yes” to godliness.

Sometimes as we read and study our Bibles we lose ourselves in the minutiae, the precise details of a matter, and we miss God’s big, bold message.  Sometimes we study  the words and dig into the meanings of the words when we just need to let the words wash over and through us.

My big, bold message as I read Titus 2.11-12 this morning was just that.  God teaches us how to live by pouring his favor on our lives.

Does this sound like “God so loved the world” to anyone else in the room?

So should we examine this more?  Pry into the way God would have us participate in this grace adventure?

Yes!

But just not at the moment.

Right now, I have drawn a nice, hot bath and I am going to soak for a while.

Grace is my teacher on the way to godliness.  Grace will teach me how I can please Jesus.

I have to admit that I am wowed!

• Nothing can be left up to us / Living by the Words of God (C) 2004 David Lee Scott / PART TWO / p. 44

4.2b.2 We must know that nothing can be left up to us and our natural tendencies. To hear what God has to say we have to be willing to look beyond ourselves. Everything in our lives, every teaching, every principle, must be examined in the light of God’s word. We must allow the Spirit of God and the word of God to have full access to our lives.

The spiritual man [person].

“But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one” (1 Corinthians 2:15 NKJV).

The person spoken of here “judges” all things.

• This word means to scrutinize, investigate, interrogate, ask, question, discern, examine, judge, search.
• This person examines everything, even his own assumptions and conclusions, based on the words of God as directed by the Holy Spirit of God.
• This person is willing to “leave no stone unturned” in her search for truth.

The bare minimum …
The bare minimum we take away from this text is that God is telling us that the life he offers is dramatically different than the life we would choose. Christ calls us to “say no to the things [we] want” and to say “yes” to whatever he wants for the rest of our lives – “pick up [our] crosses every day.”

We struggle with this in a few ways as this calls us from the familiar to the unknown, challenges our control and is contrary to our social sub-structure, as in this is not the norm, not what most professing Christians believe experientially.

But life with Jesus is anything but the norm. The norm is that you read your Bible, go to church, tithe, keep your nose clean and God will enhance the life you have chosen. It might not be what we say, but it is what many believe.

Enhanced life or a transformed life?
But that is not what God says, and we still have our question on the board. Is what God offers that good that we should give up everything? Maybe we should ask, Is he Lord or not?

The new life Jesus purchased for us with his shed blood surpasses anything we could dream or imagine, but the offer is not to enhance our lives but to make us new. The reason that many do not have the abundance Christ speaks of is because they are trying to squeeze the riches of grace out of the material of the old life instead of wearing the garment of salvation.

• Religion can happen in the church pew, but transformation only happens on the path. Only there do we find the “yes” we have been looking for.

Beyond Pretend © 2010 David Lee Scott

I love hearing your comments.  I find more energy when I hear from you.

Would you categorize this as whining or begging?  Hmmm …. 🙂