Saturday BlogPost (4/12/14)

Saturday, April 12, 2014  [A Better Bus]

"But no, my people wouldn't listen.  Israel did not want me around. So I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas."  (Psalm 81:11-12)

I grew up going to church with my family.  In 1984 at nine years old I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life.  I knew what I was asking, but I struggled with being a young follower of Christ.  When dad died in '87 I really started to turn away from God.  By the time I was in college I had stopped attending any church, never read the Scriptures, and my favorite Sunday activity had become the afternoon football or basketball double-header.  I didn't want God around.  I just wanted to live according to my own ideas and agenda.

I remember a project that I had to do for an art class.  I needed to visit 2-3 gallery exhibits and write reflections on what I had observed.  A "still small voice" [the Holy Spirit] told me which exhibits I should go to.  They were relatively close to campus and early in the semester.  However, I ended up later in the semester.  I took a bus to an art gallery somewhere I had never been before almost 40 minutes away from campus.  I saw the exhibit, took notes and sought out my bus.  After standing outside waiting for what seemed to be at least an hour, I finally saw my bus coming.  But something was strange.  When I saw the flashing yellow lights I knew.  Somewhere en route the bus had broken down and had been picked up by a tow truck.  I spent the next few hours walking back to campus through the most desolate parts of Atlanta that I had ever seen.  It wasn't fun.  I thought briefly about that "still small voice." Looking back I remember how I didn't want God around.  I just wanted to live according to my own ideas.  But, it never got me where I wanted to be.

This is just one of many stories that I can remember when I didn't want God around.  Today, I know a lot of people that just don't want God around.  But listen to what God says in Psalm 81:

"Oh, that my people would listen to me!  Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!  How quickly I would then subdue their enemies! How soon my hands would be upon their foes!  But I would feed you with the finest wheat.  I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock."  (Psalm 81:13,14,16)

It's amazing how we often think that God wants to ruin our lives, when all He really wants is to bless them.  We think that He wants to take our control away when He really wants to save us from our bad decision pattern.  But, sometimes we'd rather walk in desolate places than have Him carry us in His capable arms.

Lord, I confess that I can easily get caught up in doing my own thing.  It happens more often than I care to admit.  Help me to not turn Your love and care away.  I want to follow You today instead of turning You away.  

Questions:

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Think of a time when you simply didn't want God around.

How did that situation end up for you?

Do you struggle with giving Jesus control over your life?  Why or why not? 

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"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26)

Kenny Sullivan

(201) 218-0751

שלום

4/11/14 (Yesterday's blog post)

4/11/14 (Yesterday's blog post)

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. He told them, "Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you can tell them, 'They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the lord 's Covenant went across.' These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever." So the men did as Joshua had commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the lord had told Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there. (Joshua 4:4-8 NLT)

People have all kinds of things dedicated to their memory. Heck, the small stained glass window in our church is dedicated in someone's name, and we buy Easter lilies and poinsettias in memory of loved ones at holidays. Why is this done? Because remembering is important. There are certain things in life that should never be forgotten. In his address in Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln, puts it very well.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

See, it's not really about remembering old granny, it's about what granny stood for, it about never forgetting her sacrifice, or her dedication. It's about granny making this world a better place. That is something we can never forget.

This is the point of the memorial that Joshua had set up at Gilgal. The twelve stones mark a fulfillment of God's promise. Not that drying up the Jordan at flood stage wasn't something to be remembered, but memory only lasts a lifetime. Once the people who saw it are gone, the memory fades, and it's truth is often questioned. See, we easily forget, and without constant reminders of things that took place, the memories go away. This is the reason Joshua had this memorial built, to be a physical reminder that God did something great here, and it deserves remembrance.

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Thursday, April 10

THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2014

Deuteronomy 34:1–Joshua 2:24

Luke 13:22–14:6

Psalm 79:1–13

Proverbs 12:16

 

 

“No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life.  As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.  Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them….  Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.  Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.  Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5–9)

 

In today’s reading, we witness God’s anointing of His servant Joshua, passing the mantle of leadership from the now deceased Moses.  Joshua demonstrates himself to be a capable and humble leader, careful to follow God’s commands and to imitate his mentor Moses.  Crucially, we read here of the source of Joshua’s confidence and competence:  God Himself.  God commands Joshua to “be strong and courageous.”  By extension, it appears that God would have us to carry this strength and confidence because of His working in our lives.

 

Please notice the foundation for Joshua’s courage:  God’s constant presence and His Word.  Joshua understood and acted on the truth that God “will never leave you nor forsake you.”  If we trust this truth ourselves, no situation seems beyond control, for it lies in the hands of a loving and just Father.  Furthermore, we will never walk alone.  As David writes in Psalm 23:4, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,/ I will fear no evil, for you are with me;/ your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”  Elsewhere, David expresses the confidence of God’s imminence:  “The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?/ The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)  Like Joshua, King David would find lasting confidence in knowing that God walked with Him and fought the battle on Israel’s behalf.

 

In Chapter 2, we recognize the collateral impact that emerges when God’s people follow hard after their King:  the revelation of His glory brings forth reverent fear.  Rahab explains, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.  We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.  When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.”  In His grace, God had given Rahab a glimpse of His “chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17)

 

Our modern-day world often mixes up the proper source of confidence.  Most self-help literature encourages us to believe in ourselves, to have self-confidence.  This thinking may bring us temporary satisfaction, and it definitely makes sense to carry ourselves with confidence.  But where do we receive this confidence?

 

Paul urges us to “put no confidence in the flesh” – that is, by working to earn salvation.  But, in a similar manner, those who seek to build self-confidence are really after self-justification – perhaps not from sin, but rather to prove one’s worthiness.  Though I struggle to take hold of this message, I understand that any attempts to prove our worth or gain confidence are ultimately useless, apart from 1) God’s createdness in us; 2) His sovereign and perfect will; and 3) the gift of the promised Holy Spirit.

 

As David explains in Psalm 139:13.14, God “created my inmost being” as “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Each human life has dignity and value because of God’s creative stamp.

 

God’s perfect will leads us to become more like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ:  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:28,29)

 

Importantly, the Holy Spirit lives within each believer and His filling and power provides the New Testament parallel to the Presence described in Exodus through Joshua.  Starting with Pentecost, the Holy Spirit prompted bold faith and action from Peter, John, Paul, Silas, Barnabas, and others.  The early church received boldness through prayer (Acts 4:24–31) and spoke powerfully through the believers (Luke 12:11,12), even in challenging circumstances.

 

Let us take up Paul’s charge to Timothy, just as Joshua took up Moses’s charge to Joshua:  “For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.  For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.  So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.  Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.  He has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.  This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”  Amen!

 

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Tuesday April 8

Deuteronomy 32:28-52

Luke 12:35-59

Psalm 78:56-64

Proverbs 12:24

"When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."

Luke 12:48

The summer after my first year of college, I had a full-time job working for the city. It was my first steady paycheck and I felt it was important to start giving back to God. It was easy, because I felt like I had enough to spare. When school started again in the fall, that job ended. I earned money by tutoring and by working in the records office at the college. I was making a lot less money and started to worry about having enough. So, I stopped giving to God.

A couple weeks later, I was called into the financial aid office and I was told that I could no longer work in the records office. This job was a part of my financial aid package and they said that I had been awarded too much by mistake. I was devastated. My already smaller income was getting much smaller. I spent quite a bit of time after this feeling very sorry for myself.

After this, I was in church on a Sunday morning and the pastor's sermon was all about being responsible with what God has given you. I was stunned and I knew God was speaking directly to me. In that moment I knew that the reason I lost my job was because I was not being responsible with the money that God gave me. I saw the job as mine and I treated the money I earned as mine and I looked to this income as my source of security. So God needed to teach me a lesson and the lesson was received. Immediately, I started giving to my church again. It only amounted to a couple of dollars a week, but that wasn't the point. God didn't want my money. He wanted me to be obedient and to rely fully on Him and to view everything I had as a gift from Him.

I think this experience would be pretty incredible even if it had stopped there. But it didn't. A couple weeks later, I was called into the financial aid office again and they told me that they had made a mistake. They were giving me my job back. I know without a shadow of a doubt that God gave me my job back because I had obeyed Him.

Reading the passage in Luke reminded me of this experience. Nothing we have is ours. Everything is God's and we are His servants and He has entrusted us with what He has given. It's our responsibility to use these gifts in the way He wants us to.

April 7: I don't handle prosperity very well

Deuteronomy 31:1-32:27

Luke 12:8-34

Psalm 78:32-55

Proverbs 12:21-23

Reading Deuteronomy 31 v16, v19-20, and then v29, I was astonished at the clarity of God's Word and Moses's prophecy - that the Israelites, having feasted on God's goodness, mercy and salvation, would reject Him, turn away, and turn to other gods, that "these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering.  They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them."  Not only that, God, through Moses, told them, warned them that they would.  And yet it made no difference.  They could not handle the prosperity; they lost sight of the giver because they focused their attention on the gift.

This happens a lot - certainly to me.  My faith does not handle prosperity well.  I start to think that whatever success I might enjoy was because of my work, my effort.  What hubris, from someone who, as he wrote this, could not even tell you for certain he was going to be alive to finish the sentence much less plan a future, plot a course that would guarantee the achievement of my heart's aspirations.   In that regard, I am like the fool who planned for a future of comfort assuming he still had long to live.  The truth, as I continually discover (helped in no part by raising a teenage daughter and knowing there are boys out there just like I was when I used to date teenage girls), there is NOTHING that is in my control - not my future, distant or near, and certainly not the future of the wife and children I so deeply love, for whom I only want what's best. 

Such uncertainty, such the opposite of prosperity, would seem like a recipe for despair.  Funny enough, it isn't - because it is precisely that inability to depend on myself that, hopefully, will disabuse me of any grandiose assumptions of my own abilities, and will redirect my focus from the gifts , back to the Giver.  And then, having reconnected with Him, I will realize that I need not "worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear."  I will know that, like the ravens, who "do not sow or reap...[who] have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them", God will provide for me, for my wife, and for our kids since, after all, "how much more valuable you are than birds!"

Dear God, we live in a world that instills in us the importance of self sufficiency, that puts great value on being able to depend on one's self.  Please do whatever it takes to remind us how false that premise is, and and to open our hearts and our minds to Your love, Your plans, and Your provision.  Teach us to know the plans You have for us, to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future.

April 6

Psalm 78 April 6 2014

The saying “Hindsight is twenty-twenty” is attributed to Billy Wider, the journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. The phrase means that everyone has perfect understanding after an event happens. It is easy to look back at history and see how we could have made better decisions.

In my lifetime, if I could go back to do it all over again, here are a few of the changes I would make:

 

1. I would spend more time in God’s Word.

2. I would have spent more time with my wife and children. I would have scheduled more fun stuff.

3. I would have started devotions with my kids when they were very young and not stopped until the day I sent them off to college... regardless of how they protested. I would even endure hunger strikes.

4. I would have moved to a discipleship model of the church in 1983.

5. I would have invested in Wal-Mart and Goggle stocks and sold them in April of 2008. This last one is a joke... if I would have become a millionaire it is likely I wouldn’t be writing this blog and my life would be completely messed up.

 

In Psalm 78 Asaph is reviewing the history of the nation and he had “twenty-twenty” vision as he looks back.    Here are four of his conclusions:

 

1. If we could do it over again, we would make discipling young people the highest priority of church.

            “So the next generation would know them, even the children to be born.”

    There is nothing as important as passing our faith on to the next generation. So what is your plan to teach

     the next generation?  We all need to be engaged in this mission.

 

2. If we could do it over again, we would celebrate and appreciate God’s faithfulness every day.  

            “Time after time he restrained his anger ...”

     What did you do today to celebrate God’s faithfulness?

 

3. If we could do it over again, we would place all of our faith in the WORD of God.  

            “for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.”

    The victorious life is only found as we live believing the WORD of God. It is our faith in his word that   

    supplies the deliverance. Set aside your unbelief and trust totally in the WORD of God.

 

4. If we could do it over again we would KILL sin in our lives before it killed us.  

            “Fire consumed their young men and their maidens had no wedding songs.”

God doesn’t expect sinless perfection, but He does expect us to sin less! We should be progressing in our holiness. We live in a day when we joke about sin. But sin kills people and unless we strike first it will kill us.

 

Take a moment and reflect on your life. If you could go back and do it all over again, what changes would you bring into your life? 

--

"Multiplying leaders to change the world"

Saturday BlogPost [April 5, 2014]

Saturday, April 5, 2014 [by Keesha Sullivan]

 

"If you [Israel] fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.  All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God…" (Deuteronomy 28: 1-2).

 

The key word in these two verses that I had underlined in my Bible was the word "If."  Some of the synonyms for the word "If" are "on the condition that," "provided that," "presuming that," "supposing that," "assuming that," "as long as," and "given that."  So in other words, God could have said, "[On the condition that] you [Israel] fully obey the Lord."

 

In Deuteronomy 28:1, the Lord is giving Israel a choice. It is the same choice that God gave to Cain. He said in Genesis 4:6-7, "'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."  Again we can say that basically God said, "[As long as] you do what is right, will you not be accepted?"

 

We too have that choice.  God loves us enough that he gives us the opportunity to decide what we want to do. He is as I have heard many people call it a "Gentleman."  He doesn't force Himself on His people.  He asks for our hearts and our complete devotion, but in no way does he force us to give it to Him.

 

Unfortunately, if we look at the latter verses, we find that choosing to go against God's design and denying his offer leads to sin, captivity, excruciating heartache, and curses to fall upon us.  Fortunately, if we look at other verses in the same passage, we find that choosing to follow God's design and accepting his offer leads to holiness, freedom, relief/health, and blessings to fall upon us.

 

Joshua, the man of God that would lead the Israelites after Moses passed, understood this decision.  He said in Joshua 24:15, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

 

I will follow Joshua's lead, and I declare today that, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord with all of our heart, our soul, and our mind.  Lord, thank You so much for giving us choice.  Thank You for giving us the privilege and the honor of choosing You as Lord over our lives.  Thank You that You bless us when we obey Your word. Thank You that through You we have holiness, freedom, relief/health, and blessings.  You are an amazing, wonderful God. We love You.   Amen

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"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26)

Kenny Sullivan

(201) 218-0751

שלום