If My People - 2 Chronicles 6 and 7

Solomon has finished building the temple, they have sacrificed more animals than could be counted, and God’s cloud of glory has filled His house. Now Solomon (with his unmatched wisdom, and with insight gained from ruling the kingdom for at least eleven years) has a list of very specific requests to bring before God. These represent situations which Solomon knows only God can resolve.

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands . . . and he said: "Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven or on earth like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts. . . .Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O Lord my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You: that Your eyes may be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your name, that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes toward this place. . . .

"If anyone sins against his neighbor, and is forced to take an oath, and comes and takes an oath before Your altar in this temple, then hear from heaven, and act, and judge Your servants, bringing retribution on the wicked by bringing his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness."

Without such tools as fingerprinting, video cameras, or DNA testing, the guilt or innocence of a person could be determined only by actual witnesses. When there were none, the accused would come before the altar and swear that he was innocent. Solomon is asking God to make the final determination in these cases.

"Or if Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and return and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You gave to them and their fathers."

This appears to describe a prisoner-of-war scenario. Solomon understands that God does not bless efforts in battle when His people have sinned. Solomon is asking God to forgive and rescue them when they repent and turn back to Him.

"When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance."

Another consequence of sin might be drought. When God afflicts the nation in this manner until they acknowledge their sin, Solomon is again asking for forgiveness. He sees this pattern as a training effort, to "teach them the good way in which they should walk," so God's blessings could continue in their land.

"When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows his own burden and his own grief, and spreads out his hands to this temple: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men), that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You gave to our fathers."

This list is more comprehensive, including both natural disasters and human oppression--all of which are seen as designed by God to bring His people to repentance. Solomon understands that God deals not only with the entire nation but also on an individual level in this training process.

"Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, when they come and pray in this temple; then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name."

Solomon here asks God to respond to foreigners who have heard of His power and travel sometimes great distances to pray in the temple.

"When Your people go out to battle against their enemies, wherever You send them, and when they pray to You toward this city which You have chosen and the temple which I have built for Your name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

This request applies to those times when the Israelites are away from Jerusalem. Solomon asks God to accept prayers that are prayed "toward the city" when the people cannot actually go to the temple.

"When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to a land far or near; yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have committed wickedness'; and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You. Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place."

In this final request, Solomon is addressing the most serious matter of all. Unlike the training process described earlier, he knows there might come a point when God would become angry with His people, so much so that He would send them into captivity. Even in this extreme situation, Solomon is once again asking for forgiveness.

After the dedication festivities are completed, everyone returns to their homes. Later, in the privacy of Solomon's bedroom, God responds to his prayer.

Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. . . . But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

"And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this land and this house?’ Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.'"

In this response God reaffirms the distinction between ordinary sins (those "wicked ways" which His people could be trained to turn away from) and the direct rejection of God Himself. While God promises to forgive when His people humble themselves, pray, and cease their sinning, there is no such offer of forgiveness when they reject Him as God and deliberately choose to worship other gods. Should this happen, God tells Solomon, He will not only send the people into captivity, but He will also destroy the temple itself.

* * *

America was founded as a Christian nation, just as Israel was God's chosen people. There have been many times when we too have been disciplined, both as a country and as individuals. However, it is arguable that we are now a post-Christian nation and are deliberately following after other gods. While God will continue to show mercy to those individuals who obey Him, He may very well have become angry with our nation.

But in our case, rather than being carried off to Babylon, it appears that Babylon is coming to us. We are being swallowed up in an anti-Christian culture. We need to face the sobering possibility that our country may be at the point of no return. In other words, we may be past the "If My people" option. If this is true, then I believe we should prepare ourselves spiritually for the long term--for life in exile--as did Daniel and the other believers of his day.

Two Kinds of Love - Mark 12:30,31

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Love is that which binds one person to another. If love is true and complete, it will reside in our hearts, in our minds, in our words, in our choices, and in our actions. For many of us however, love is partial, or even artificial. We say what we know we're supposed to say, or do what we've been told we must do. But it splits us up, because our hearts don't agree with what our words or deeds say.

The only source of true and complete love is God Himself. All of us have some connection to God, because we have received from Him our life, our identity, our personality, and our desires. No living human can be entirely separated from God, no matter how evil or destitute his nature becomes. At the same time, no human can be fully connected to God apart from the redemptive act of Christ's salvation and His imparted Spirit.

These are not new thoughts or new teachings, but rather are the bedrock of Christian truth that has endured through the centuries. What we may not have understood, I believe, is the twofold character of love. When Jesus taught that we must love God with ALL our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and yet still have love left over for our neighbors and ourselves, it is arguable that He is speaking of two different kinds of love.

A close examination of I Corinthians 13 will give us a very clear picture of one of these loves. Paul describes this love as patient and kind, self-giving and forgiving. It hopes for all things and endures all things. It is a love that has its basis not in the goodness or beauty or desirability of the one who is loved, but in the nature of the lover himself. This is the love God shows to us. If we were to name this love, we could call it cherishing love.

In contrast, the other kind of love is love that specifically responds to the nature of the one who is loved. This is the love we have toward God. As we come to know more and more deeply His beauty and His holiness and His power and His goodness, we respond with a love that eventually fills our hearts and minds and souls, and causes us to serve Him with all our strength. Whereas cherishing love loves "in spite of," this kind of love loves totally "because of." We will name it honoring love.

It is this division of love that is implied in Christ's commandment in Mark 12:30,31. We are to give God all honor, because He is all-deserving. At the same time, we are to cherish our neighbor in the same way we cherish ourselves, with patience, kindness, and a strong hope for his highest wellbeing.

What might appear to be a simple dividing line is, however, a little more complex. You see, the Bible often speaks of us honoring other individuals, such as our parents, those who rule us, and even "all people" (I Peter 2:17). We can understand this best when we define honor as being an acknowledgment of value. The honoring love we give to God is our confession that in Him alone is everything of value. However, His valuableness has been dispersed throughout His creation. Thus, wherever we see the valuableness of God, we are to give it honor as though we are giving it to Him.

For example, we are commanded to honor our parents because they are the channel of God's life-giving power and authority in our lives. To mistreat or to rebel against a parent is to essentially do the same to God. We are to honor the king because he also represents God's authority. We are to honor each other because each of us is made in the image of God. Peter tells husbands to honor their wives specifically because they are fellow inheritors of the “grace of life” (I Peter 3:7).

We should note, however, that these are all examples of what might be called "positional" honor. We give honor to those who in some way have been given a position of worth in God's created order. If we fail to give this kind of honor, we are effectively dishonoring God. But this positional honor is not exactly the same as honoring love. These people are to be treated as valuable whether or not they have any commendable or desirable personal qualities whatsoever.

Honoring love, on the other hand, honors because there is something powerfully attractive in the one who is loved. As we've said, this honor is only completely deserved by God alone. However, because God's beauty and goodness can be seen in others as well, it is not contradictory to give honoring love to those in whom that godly nature is manifested. Thus when someone is kind to me, or when someone demonstrates God's strength or beauty or wisdom or creative power, then it is not inappropriate for me--because I appreciate the value of these qualities--to respond through an expression of love for that individual.

The problem arises not in my loving that person, but in the misunderstanding of what my love means. Our tendency is to see the person himself as deserving the love, whereas it is ultimately God who deserves it. This will become clearer if we temporarily change the phrase "honoring love" to the word "worship."

Worship is the strongest expression of our "“because of" response. Worship acknowledges the attractiveness and desirability of another. At the same time, worship innately requires the perfection of that other person. Worship thus sets itself against "in spite of" love. When I worship someone, I not only want them to continue to be the source of the good things I see in and receive from them, but I will press them to become the source of other good things, even all good things. For this reason, only God is the proper object of our worship.

I have come to believe that the only solution to this human tendency to seek out false gods is to set our minds and hearts and wills on discovering the full beauty and strength of the true God Himself. We have a profound need to worship, and to the extent we do not know God we are driven to create imagined gods out of whomever or whatever we find at hand. But none of these will adequately nourish our spirits, and eventually we will become angry with them and will become filled with despair ourselves.

Let us now consider the other love, which I've termed "cherishing love." Whereas honoring love is centered on the acknowledgment of value, cherishing love is distinguished by its ability to establish value. It is clear that this creative power must originate with God, as do all forms of creativity. Thus while we may have some residual capacity to cherish others simply because we are made in God's image, our fallen natures are predominantly preoccupied with our own neediness, and most of our natural love focuses on what we can receive.

When, however, we have our true neediness filled by God's own cherishing love, there arises in us the ability to share in His creative outflow. As we saw in I Corinthians 13, cherishing love is characterized by its willingness to accept someone "in spite of" every disagreeable aspect of their nature. The origin of cherishing love is described in Ephesians 1:3-6.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

The Greek word that is here translated "accepted," charitoo, is the same word the angel spoke to Mary when he told her she was "highly favored." This kind of acceptance is far more than a casual tolerance, but is rather a full reception of that other person into the realm of all that is of great worth. Paul describes this process in Romans 15:1-7.

We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.For even Christ did not please himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me" For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

I have been told that when someone is in a drug-induced state of euphoria, one of the strongest feelings they experience is that of being completely safe and completely accepted. For those few surreal moments, all fear and failure and rejection mysteriously disappear. When the user is cruelly plunged back into the horrors of reality, this moment (enhanced no doubt by other physical dependencies on the drug) drives him to set aside any other desire but to return to that small oasis of peace.

How much better is the gift of true acceptance and true safety which God has offered to those who will receive it. We must understand however that while this accepting, cherishing love raises us to a place of infinite value, it does so at a cost. Christ allowed our “reproaches” to fall on Himself, and He calls us to pass this kind of love on to others in His name, pleasing them instead of pleasing ourselves.

This then is how the two commandments of Jesus are joined together. As we deliberately direct the full force of our neediness toward His all-encompassing completeness (which is a much more profound activity than what we often envision worship to be), we enter into the authentic place of joy of which the addict's euphoria is a counterfeit. There we come to understand both our absolute worthlessness apart from Him and our total acceptance "in the Beloved."

From this place of healing there arises the strength and incentive to love as we have been loved. When we see the pain and despair of those around us, our spontaneous desire will be that they might share in what we ourselves have gained. Instead of focusing on their corruption and failures (as we might have done when we ourselves were searching for God in all possible corners), we begin instead to comprehend His vision of what they could become. This comprehension moves quickly to the expressions of cherishing love, for it is our greatest joy to see God's nature fully displayed in every element of His creation--in others even as it has been in ourselves.

Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit - Ephesians 4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

For quite a few years I had been enjoying FreeCell, one of the solitaire games on my computer. Each possible way the cards can be dealt is numbered, and I had a little scoresheet where I checked them off as I won them. Of course, I knew my propensity to get caught up in this kind of activity, so I carefully disciplined myself. After each game I would get up and do something constructive before allowing myself to play another.

One afternoon I had started a game when the phone rang. It was a woman who sometimes called for either counsel or sympathy. I was glad when my daughter picked up the phone, for I knew she would probably be able to provide the needed encouragement. A short while later the call was over, and Amy came in to report on her talk. When she sat down in the chair by my desk, I looked at her to decide if now she would need a chance to talk. She seemed fine, and when I asked if everything had gone okay, she assured me it had. So as she recounted her conversation, I divided my attention between her words and my game.

Then all of a sudden I had one of the strangest experiences of my life. It was as though I was looking at an old-fashioned movie film, the kind where there are a series of frames that create the illusion of motion. Everything was normal--except one frame was different. For the briefest of seconds, I clearly saw a Figure standing behind my daughter.

Three things were instantly and forever impressed into my soul. The first impression was simply the knowledge that this was Jesus. I did not see His face, but I knew without a doubt it was Him. The second thing I knew with absolute certainty was that He was not angry. I've known what it's like to have someone angry with me, and that feeling was not there. The third thing however gripped me the most strongly, which was that I had made my Savior sad. Even without seeing His face, His heart somehow touched mine and I felt His grief.

As Amy got up to leave, I sat there processing what had just happened. Slowly I reached up and clicked out of my game. I then made my way to my bedroom closet. There on my face before God, I wept. At first all I felt was deep repentance. But gradually, I realized I was also grateful. My God had given me a clear revelation of what did and did not please Him. I returned to my desk, deleted the program and threw away my scorecard. Today I don't even remember how to play FreeCell.

When at Calvary Christ received the full wrath of God against our sins, it did not remove the fact that they still bring Him great sorrow. Paul spoke of this grieving process in Ephesians 4:25-32.

Therefore, putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor," for we are members of one another. "Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

I cannot say with certainty that playing cards is always sinful. What I do know is that our entertainments are powerful, drawing us into hours of distractedness, making it very easy to ignore the quiet opportunities God might give us--either to commune with Him or to be used in service to others. I also am fairly certain they do not give Him pleasure, and that in the final count they will be of no eternal value.

Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (I Corinthians 3:12-15)

Increase Our Faith - Luke 17:5-10

And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

So the Lord said, "If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down to eat'? But will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink'? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"

We should notice that the disciples did not ask Christ the question we might have asked. They did not say "What is faith?" As with their earlier request in Luke 11, "Teach us to pray," they were not simply curious philosophically. They were practical men, and they sincerely wished to be brought to the place where they could live and walk as their Master did.

It is clear that Jesus was also not interested in being abstract or academic. His response is very direct. Faith, He essentially tells them, is a matter of great authority and great humility. If they had even the tiniest measure of faith, they could speak to that tree they were standing by, and it would be pulled up and planted in the sea. Not thrown in the sea. Planted.

The longer part of His answer involves a servant who has labored hard in the fields or pastures. This man, upon arriving at the house, does not feed himself. Rather, he prepares a meal and serves it to his master, waiting patiently until the master has finished eating. After this the servant is able to take care of his own needs. But not only does the master not thank the servant for his service, the servant does not see any of this inequity of privilege as being wrong.

An interesting aspect of this story is that the listener transitions from being the master at the beginning to being the servant at the end. Jesus is not putting His disciples in either role. Rather, He is illustrating a principle, the principle of authority and submission. The reason this story falls so painfully on modern ears is because we have no real sense of the sacredness of duty, especially duty based on positional hierarchy.

But try as we might to revise things a little, this story is consistent with Christ's definition of faith throughout the gospels. There is the story (in Luke 7:9) of the centurion who desired healing for his servant. He told Jesus he was not worthy for Him to come into his house. Because he himself lived in a hierarchy of military command, he understood the authority Jesus had simply in the words He spoke. Jesus was amazed, and told the people around Him, "I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"

A similar request for healing is found in Matthew 15:22-28.

And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed." But He answered her not a word.

And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, "Send her away, for she cries out after us." But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." And she said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Like the servant in the first story and the centurion in the second, this woman was not resentful that she was in a subordinate class. Her expression of humility was neither fake nor manipulative. Rather, she peacefully accepted the higher status of others, and again the healing power of God was released as a result of her "great faith."

In the 18th chapter of Luke, Jesus was teaching on the coming day when the Son of Man would again be revealed. At the end of His discussion, almost as a private musing, He asks, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

There is no question that faith has been on earth in the past. Many people, both famed and unnamed, occupy the honored "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11. Here is how some of the famous are described (verses 32-35).

For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again.

Yet the stories of the unknowns are also listed.

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. (Hebrews 11:35-38)

Once again we see the two key components of faith in these Old Testament saints--the courage to stand strong in God's miraculous authority and an unwavering willingness to accept humiliation and abuse. The apostles also operated in this same faith during the days of the early church.

But the question remains, will Christ find these when He returns? Are we also ready to pray, "Lord, increase our faith"? Or has not our culture, and even the church, raised some very different standards in our day? Do we not pursue the equalization of privilege between all people as one of our highest aims, thereby forfeiting even the concept of positional authority? Do we not encourage self-actualization and self-esteem as premiere virtues? Do we not teach our children to aspire to personal greatness? "You can be anything you set your mind to!"

Or will we recall the quiet voices of Mary, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38), and of John the Baptist, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

If we truly desire to possess the faith of Christ, I believe we need to become as the servant in the story, gladly serving without expectation of appreciation or reward, knowing too that our Master has the full power to move trees--and even mountains--and that as His representatives we can draw on that power to accomplish His will in our world.

It Shall Be Unclean - Haggai 2:10-14

On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Now, ask the priests concerning the law, saying, "If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy?"'"

Then the priests answered and said, "No."

And Haggai said, "If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?"

So the priests answered and said, "It shall be unclean."

Then Haggai answered and said, "'So is this people, and so is this nation before Me,' says the Lord, 'and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.'"

While many of the detailed requirements of Old Testament ritual were fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ, these laws nonetheless contained eternal principles that remain entirely intact. Buried in the little book of Haggai is one such principle which our modern world would do well to assimilate.

Haggai had been tasked by God to refocus the hearts of the exiles who had returned from Babylon and were supposed to be rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. Because they had gotten distracted by the preoccupations of their own lives, God had lifted His blessings from them. He then warned the people, through Haggai, to "Consider your ways."

You have sown much, and bring in little;
You eat, but do not have enough;
You drink, but you are not filled with drink;
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes. (1:6)

It's clear that the people were not being lazy. Nor is there any mention of moral wrongdoing. The only accusation God made against them is that they had built themselves "paneled houses" before they built a house for Him. In other words, His priorities had become secondary to theirs.

In case they might see their financial struggles as random bad luck, or perhaps an attack of the devil, God spelled out the truth quite bluntly in verses 9-11.

"You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the Lord of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."

The people took Haggai's words to heart, and it is said they "feared the presence of the Lord." God immediately responded by stirring up their spirits to work on rebuilding His house. He also encouraged them to be strong, for He was with them. "According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you: do not fear!" (2:5)

How quickly God returns to us when we return to Him. He has no pleasure in our poverty or distress. He even "stirs up our spirits," giving us the needed strength to do what He has commanded, and comes alongside as we walk in His ways.

However, God had one more important point to impress upon the people through the words of Haggai. He gave the priests a little quiz taken from their law books. The first question: If holy meat touches something else, like bread or stew or wine or oil, will any of these become holy as well? The priests answered rightly, "No."

Question two: If someone who has become ritually unclean because he touched someone who died then touches any of the same bread or stew or wine or oil, will it become unclean? The priests answered, "It shall be unclean."

The bad always corrupts the good. The good can never purify the bad. How often we reverse these principles in our day. A few wrong words, some immoral situations...but the acting was so good! The show was SO funny, or clever, or had such amazing special effects.

I believe God is saying to His people in our day that humor and brilliance and talent do not sanitize the things we take into our spirits. A little arsenic poisons an entire candy bar. A teaspoon of manure ruins even the best batch of brownies.

The exiles in Jerusalem had repented of their wrong priorities. They had returned to the assignment God had given them. But God still knew they would be most vulnerable not to the large-scale assaults of their enemies, but to the little--seemingly innocent--compromises.

The only way they would avoid these snares, God told them, was never to forget the "blight and mildew and hail" with which He had previously struck them. In the same way God chastens us today, so we might realize the absolute standard of obedience to which we are also called.

That He May Be Glorified - Isaiah 61:3

The Lord has anointed Me...to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

One of the most devious, and most damaging, of our enemy's strategies is the concept that we have innate rights. By that I mean we have been led to believe we are owed something by virtue of our very existence.

It is true that we can have humanly-bestowed rights. For example, under the laws of our nation we receive certain protections and certain privileges in exchange for our loyal and compliant citizenship. But these are not innate, and they can be removed from us.

What we have instead, as beings created by God, is a vast array of gifts, beginning with the gift of life. We have also been given such gifts as creativity, the ability to feel joy, assignments that give us a sense of worth, and the wonderful opportunity to experience relationships with other created beings. God has privileged us to live on this beautiful planet, with all the resources it offers for our productivity and pleasure.

The subtle shift in thought--from seeing these things as gifts to seeing them as somehow due to us--can become the source of immense discontent. Because another person has received more of something, there arises a feeling of inequity that robs me of the ability to be grateful for that which I do have.

But even more, I believe it has caused the Christian community to build certain aspects of its battle plan on a wrong foundation. We have joined the secular world in seeking to defend and preserve "human rights," including the "right to life." While this sounds good, and carries weight in many arenas, it misses the far more solid foundation that God Himself established.

The message of Isaiah's wonderful announcement in chapter 61 is that God has stepped into the misery of human existence with the promise of a Savior who will liberate the captives and heal the brokenhearted. He will bring comfort and consolation to those who mourn. He will bring good tidings to the poor.

Then, in verse three, we find an amazing exchange that God offers His people. He is willing to take our ashes in trade for His beauty. He will take our mourning and give us His joy. He will take our "spirit of heaviness," and will reclothe us in His garment of praise.

This, I think, paints a more accurate picture of God's design for human redemption. We are born into the world with a deep desire for God, but because of our sin we inevitably reach toward other impotent sources to supply our needs and longings. These substitute gods cannot satisfy us, and eventually our lives are reduced to heaviness, mourning, and ashes.

Then at some point we hear the proclamation of grace, and by that grace we become able to admit our desperation and to accept His salvation. The divine exchange takes place, and we begin to walk in the life He has purchased for us at the cost of His own blood. This greatest of all gifts requires from us the deepest of all gratitudes. We deserve nothing, but out of the bounty of His goodness He gives us His beauty and His joy.

It is when this process becomes real in our minds and hearts that we begin to realize the true value of life in others. Each unborn child, each beggar on the streets, each broken old person--every being who bears the imprint of the divine image--all are potential recipients of God’s amazing grace. His sacrifice purchased sufficient life for the entirety of creation. The issue is not their right to life. The issue is His right to His creation.

For you see, when the exchange is made and we enter into His redemption, Isaiah tells us that we become "trees of righteousness" which the Lord Himself has planted. We are not "rocks of righteousness," permanently shaped from the start. Rather, we are living, growing beings who grow to display His nature, and eventually to bear His fruit, for the explicit purpose of bringing Him glory.

And a significant part of that glory is our own joyful worship. We tend to see worship as something we give to God, but in fact it is entirely the outflow of His overwhelming generosity toward us. He causes it. He deserves it. He is glorified by it.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its bud,
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

Isaiah 61:10,11

Perfect and Complete - James 1

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)

James, like many other Bible writers, does not speak of self-improvement. That's a human-level perspective on God's agenda. Rather, he uses these enormous, impossible words: "perfect and complete, lacking nothing." All of us have a sense that we ought to be getting a little more holy over time. But very few of us dare to measure our lives on a daily basis against God's divine standard of perfection.

If we look closely at this first chapter, however, we will discover that James is asking us to do things we actually can do. He understands that as we do these things, God Himself will supernaturally work His perfection into us.

He opens his discussion with the phrase, "Count it all joy." He's not saying we should naturally be happy when we find ourselves in times of trials. The joy he speaks of is not a response. The word "count" is a matter of the will, not the emotions. We are to choose to see our trials as good and acceptable because of their power to bring us to God's perfection. Our emotions may tremble or grieve, but our spirit can find peace in the knowledge that God is working something of great value in these very difficulties.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (5-8)

Next on our to-do list is asking. Among the challenges of the Christian walk is that there is much we don't understand, and there are many decisions which are hard to make. God tells us that when we ask Him for the wisdom we lack, He will give it to us "liberally and without reproach." The catch is, we must be very serious about accepting this wisdom and adjusting our lives accordingly. God isn't going to give us something to simply ponder, another viewpoint we can weigh against other competing views to see which we prefer.

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. (9-11)

Here is one of the things God apparently wants us to be wise about: our attitude toward wealth. Being poor, James tells us, is a position of honor, whereas riches can be a snare, leading us to put our energies into things that will quickly disappear. Notice again that our assignment is to "glory" in our lowliness. Like "counting it all joy," this glorying is a matter of the will. We must deliberately choose to evaluate poverty and wealth--and every other aspect of life--in the same way God does.

This reinforces the truth that God's wisdom is often backwards from the world's wisdom, and therefore is not something that can be successfully merged with it. I should also point out that James is not saying we should pursue either poverty or wealth. Rather, if we are poor it is something to rejoice about. If we are rich, we should have a sober and humble awareness of the unreliability and transience of our wealth.

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (12-15)

Next on our list is endurance. The key to endurance, according to James, is our understanding of temptation. Temptations are different from trials, in that trials are about suffering whereas temptations are about sin. When we give in to something that tempts us, it is like testing positive for a disease. There's something wrong inside. Our inclination is to blame the tempter (Eve tried that, remember?). But God says we are drawn by our own desires.

We can only endure (that is, make it through a temptation without falling for it) when our desire for God becomes stronger than our desire for the thing which would entice us. In other words, we must become so aware of the beauty and desirability of God that our love for Him changes us on the inside. And that, my friend, is again a matter of choice. We must choose to think about God, and to keep our eyes and minds away from those attractions that do not fully honor Him.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. (16-18)

Here the instruction is to "not be deceived." This one is a little tricky because deceptions are, well, deceiving. So James spells out the lie. He says that no one else but God is responsible for the things that are good in our lives. No one else can take credit for truth, or for human achievements, or for the blessings we enjoy. The government doesn't give us our security, colleges don't give us our wisdom, technology doesn't give us the solutions to our problems, and (most of all) we ourselves don't earn or deserve the successes we experience. If something is good, it has come from God and God alone.

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (19-21)

Although this seems like just another series of to-do's, James is actually beginning here to describe the picture of God's perfection. Because the testings of our faith have taught us patience, because our understanding has been made clear by God's wisdom, because we now are able to evaluate our lives from His perspective, because we have learned to endure temptations and to reject lies, "So then...." So then, we are able to be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to become angry. So then, we will lay aside filthiness and wickedness. So then, we will receive with meekness the redemptive words of God.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. (22-25)

Do not misunderstand. We still must make continual and deliberate choices to live out the perfection God has worked into us. But that perfection is now truly ours. We know the truth of God's priorities. Our faith through patience and endurance has built into us a supernatural strength. We have discovered God's love and we respond by loving Him.

How can we test our perfection? That's simple, says James.

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (26-27)

If God has made us complete, it will be made evident by what we say and do. Let me emphasize this. Our words and actions are the result, not the source, of our perfection. Good talk and generous deeds and clean living mean nothing unless they are the outflow of God's own nature in us. If they come from anywhere else, they are not part of the righteousness of God and have no eternal value.

So in review, we must begin by gratefully acknowledging that our sufferings are God's chosen means to teach us patience. We should prayerfully seek His wisdom, that we might understand and follow in His ways. As our knowledge of His perspective on things (such as wealth) increases, our attitudes and choices should reflect these same values. And finally, when temptations come, we must resist them with great endurance, knowing that if we do, we will "receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."