Speaking Our Heart

Numbers 12:1-4,9-11,15 While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lord heard them. (Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.) So immediately the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, “Go out to the Tabernacle, all three of you!” So the three of them went to the Tabernacle… The Lord was very angry with them, and he departed. As the cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, there stood Miriam, her skin as white as snow from leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened to her, he cried out to Moses, “Oh, my master! Please don’t punish us for this sin we have so foolishly committed… So Miriam was kept outside the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back before they traveled again.

If there is one recurring theme that has been common this far in the lives of the Israelites being led to the promised land, it is the theme of God taking offense at others who try to act as judges.

We live under the new covenant and therefore are in a period of grace. How then does this chapter minister to us?

Pride And Stumbling Blocks

Exodus 31:1-6,12-13,16-17 Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you… Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy… The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.’”

How beautiful is it when God reveals His desires for us? After God described the beautiful dwelling place He will live in to be with His people, He reveals that the materials are provided to the Israelites, as are the skills and the calling.

God certainly has shown total and perfect control in all He does and He has a beautiful way of using His people to achieve His objective. What then happens to great men like Moses and what is this about the Sabbath?

One great challenge we face as humans is our pride. Pride has served as a great stumbling block to many in their walk and continues to be among the greatest battles we face daily.

We today deal with challenges such as lack of self-confidence, low morale, poor esteem, low self-worth, etc. as issues that affect our personality and we try to work hard against it.

Children are taught from a young age to take charge, be leaders, be individual and confident in their presentations, we reaffirm them, motivate and inspire them, etc. to help them work away from the issues of low self-esteem.

With God, things seem to be very different. First God chooses a man who stammered, who had no face among the Egyptians or Israelites because he murdered and ran away, who was just a shepherd tending flocks and lived under the grace of his father in law Jethro.

Moses was that man and God used him to accomplish the great task of shaming the great Egyptians and freeing the Israelites from 430 years of bondage and slavery, all without an army or wealth or physical strength.

As Moses leads this great nation of over two million people across the sands of the desert to the promised land, God then establishes other men from among the nation to take up other responsibilities.

Clearly God is not in the process of making one man superstars but rather works on using each of His chosen ones to do His work when they are willing and ready.

When we are transformed by God’s love, we are each called to serve God and some may be called to be the face while others may be called behind the scenes but no single person’s role makes them any less important to God.

Further, God makes it clear to the Israelites that they were to keep the Sabbath without fail and the consequence of not keeping it was death! Seems a bit stiff as an expectation, you might wonder.

When we contrast those words of God to the words and actions of Christ in the 4 gospels, you are left shocked as were the Jews of Jesus’ day because we see that our understanding of God’s words are not complete and Jesus reveals the meaning and purpose of God’s word.

Read these passages from the gospels and think about Jesus’ response: Matthew 12:1-16; Mark 3:2; Luke 6:1-5; Luke 13:10-17; John 6:2-18; John 7:23.

On the sabbath day, Jesus healed people and ate grain from the fields and this stirred up the keepers of the law who lived by this commandment in Exodus 31:16-17 and Deuteronomy 5:14.

Jesus responded to them asking them how they felt about David’s actions when he and his companions were hungry and went into the temple and ate the consecrated bread. It was unlawful for them but not for the priests.

Furthermore, priests work on the sabbath day and that is certainly unlawful as per the law, yet they are considered innocent. The problem here was not the action but that God desired mercy, not sacrifice.

Sabbath was the day of rest from regular work but it is a day to celebrate God’s goodness to us. We are called to spend the day worshipping God. No law must be understood so as to contradict itself. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the sabbath and the day is to be dedicated to Him for His glory.

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

Man’s Intelligence and Certain Destruction

Genesis 11:1-9 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

The wonderful aspect of the word of God is that there is consistency in what it speaks. Regardless of how hard it is for us ‘intelligent beings’ to comprehend God’s ability to create the heavens and the earth and not be physically present (In our 20/20 vision), I have to thank God that until now, we have seen consistency and relevancy in all that has taken place.

Man fell yet prospered, is evil yet not totally condemned and rejected by God and we have come to the point where this sinful man has now started to use the knowledge gained from the fall of man to become God.

I refer here to the building of the tower of Babel, the effort of the combined intelligence of the men in Shinar who decided to make a monument that would reflect the glory of their knowledge, ability and skill. Does it not remind us of the great monuments from history of man’s achievements?

The question that comes to mind here is not why these men made this structure or how come they spoke the same language but why God did not destroy them but rather made them speak different languages and sent them away?

The Ark of Eternal Protection

Genesis 6:9-14,17-18,22 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch… “Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish. “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you… Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.

This is a story most people I know are aware of not because they read the Bible but because it is a story that is told to little children just like any other fabled tale. There are cute cartoons that depict this story and this has also been a point of great debate as to whether God actually flooded the entire earth and saved just Noah and his family plus 2 of every creation and we today, regardless of race, are therefore offspring of Noah?

Every passage that we read in the Bible is rife with questions asked by humans of great intelligence and what is God trying to establish by presenting such hard to accept matters?

Saved or Judged?

Revelation 18:1-3,8-11 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality”… “For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong. “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more

As I read chapter 18, my mind raced through the many countries, cities, power houses, etc. that could be referred here. Is it the commercial capitals of the world, the gambling cities, the largest corporations that drive the world economies??

Who could this great Babylon be and what could her sins be that God is so furious with her? Why is God so furious at this great city and what is He speaking to us this day through this great warning?

Sacrificing Self

Revelation 16:1,4-7,17 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God”… Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “Righteous are You, who are and who were, O Holy One, because You judged these things; for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it.” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.”… Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.”

The picture painted of the end times in these prophetic words recorded in Revelation seem much more than just simply events. While many of these events might take place soon, many seem to have already to have taken place if we understand these signs in the language of the Hebrews and there is much we can assimilate by inferring but is that what God wants us to do today?

I like to read my Bible with the desire to hear what God wants to say to me because His voice is recorded here in text and as relevant as it was thousands of years ago, it is amazingly relevant to us today in our modern day situations too!

Revelations 16 describes the last 7 plagues that are to come and as hard as they are to imagine and digest, what I found harder was the words spoken by the angel of the waters and echoed again by the altar of God.

How can the seas, the land and the rivers and streams pour the blood of saints and prophets and what justice is there for God to punish these elements?

Hope In Ashes

Revelation 8:1-5 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

The journey to the end of life (as we know it) through the lens of the Bible is not one we ever want to witness. Dealing with life as we have it is hard enough considering the natural disasters we undergo, the climatic changes, the erosion of the ozone layer and it’s effects on life, the harsh consequences of tremendous growth and prosperity evident in the pollution, deforestation, extinction of fauna and flora species, etc.

If God wanted, I’m certain He could let us live in our own mess and that would be bad enough for us to call on His name in desperation as we seem to be successfully destructing ourselves in our selfishness and greed. Why does God want to judge us as harshly as these revelations reveal?

The silence in heaven after the opening of the seventh seal is evidence of the solemnity of the event. The six seals opened before were in quicker succession and it is reasonable to expect the seventh to be prominent as it was the last.

The events that follow show the beginning of the wrath of God revealed to humanity and what we consider suffering is nothing in the face of what is about to come.

Jesus has given us our lifetimes to respond to His call and His grace is evidenced from the fact that we are permitted to live without submitting our lives to Him.

If we were to be judged for our selfishness, living would be a real nightmare because the God who created the heavens and the earth by mere words could easily show us suffering as we can never imagine.

What God expects for us to be spared of this unimaginable suffering is our complete submission. Just going to a church or doing good deeds will never qualify us because we will never be justified as our faults are too many for our good deeds to even make a dent towards.

We are told to submit ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to earth to die for our sins and who will wash us clean not because of anything we have done but because He loves us.

After submission, we are called to live a life of worship and by that I do not mean just singing and praising God or going to church or reading the Bible. We are called to worship God with our all just like the elders and the hosts of heaven who worship God 24X7. God sees our hearts and not just our words or actions and He wants us to worship Him with our all.

I pray that as we seek God each day, we will not just seek Him because we HAVE TO but because we LOVE TO and that He will take us from strength to strength and help us to be oasis of His love to the world around us so that many will meet Him and be transformed by His love.

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth

Is There Really Hope?

2 Peter 3:8-13

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

As I continue to listen to the news from around the world, it seems more and more apparent that the only possible change in our world  for sanity and peaceable living is a total reconstruction of humanity but that would not work because we will remain sinful and continue to be selfish by nature, therefore bringing us back to where we are. Some of us might live in very surroundings and are possibly sheltered from the harsh realities of the 21st century but a brief glance at world news will show us how broken our world is. Also, the peaceful lives that we lead are often peaceful because we are made to think that everything is well but a simple dipstick check of how people are doing around us will show that everyone is strained by the burden of suffering. People with more worry because they have more to lose, those with less worry about how they will survive and those in-between are never at peace about where they are. In all this confusion called life, where is God and what is the answer He offers us?

Supremacy of Christ

Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus is the picture of humility no human can ever stand up to. His supremacy is so well described here by Paul and yet the person who came here to earth to live among us and die for us sounds like a shadow of the person who He really is. The only motivation for someone to go through what Christ went through for us is love and not just human, selfish, sinful love but a love that is far beyond our understanding, a love so pure and faultless that only God could feel and experience and show. Many people have asked me and I am sure I have asked God why is it that he made the world the way it is, why were we given freedom to choose and if God was God, why would he permit the pain and strife that we go through?

I am not God and therefore don’t seek to answer for him but just imagine the life of a toy. It is heartless, is built for a purpose, has value to someone who appreciates it and loses value the moment the next toy comes along and therefore to its creator it is a lifeless creation. The pursuit of every toymaker is to make a toy that works like a Pinocchio that had life in it. Look at computers and our attempt to make artificial intelligence or inventions of the first cell. God has created us and the universe around us for a larger purpose than just being toys and he wants his entire creation to praise him for what he has done and gives us the freedom to choose. The Bible reminds us that one day, every tongue, tribe and nation will bow down before him in realization of who he is and the saved will live with him for eternity. Does this God who is supreme over everything yet humble below everything in love for us deserve our all?

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Filled With God’s Fullness

Ephesians 3:14-19
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I love to read Paul’s prayers as he expresses God’s word in lay man understanding, giving a sense of direction with prophetic words, has a deep seated motivation to spur us onward in our Christian walk and always giving God the glory. As I think about God, I realized that Jesus quoted the word of God in everything that He said and His life was lived in the fulfillment of it. When live out out faith in our lives, do we use and consider the word of God in everything? I long for the day when God’s word is etched in my mind and heart and when the first thought I have in every situation is Him and His glory. Is that what Paul prays here for us?

Paul requests God to give us from his glory the strength through His Holy Spirit residing in us (believers) so that Christ may live in our hearts through our faith in Him. Why would God need to strengthen us for Christ to live in us? When we accept Christ, we are walking away from the Prince of this world, Satan, and taking the path the Lord wants us to walk. This means our lives are always going to be in torment from Satan and we will constantly be drawn back to our lives of sin and therefore we need the strength that only God can give us, the direction that the Holy Spirit provides us and the love that Christ shows us through His life. As we walk with God, we start to appreciate the dimensions of His love which, although unseen to the blinded eyes of sinful men, are revealed to us who are born again through His sacrifice for us. Are you filled with the full measure of God and living out your faith in your life?

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.