Friday Morning Devotion (TGIF)

Posted on August 31, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

30Even young men get tired and faint,
those who are physically fit can still stumble.
31But those who wait on YHWH will renew their strength.
They will rise on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint. — Isaiah 40:30-31

Thank God it’s Friday! How many of you have said this already in your offices or homes this morning? Well, I have been feeling that way. You can see that the devotional is late. Jody had to start work at 7:00 AM, and I needed the car today to do the grocery shopping, thus I got started doing things early, but practically all of my days activities are running late. I should have written the devotional last night, but it didn’t happen.

All of us get tired, and all of us need new strength. There are two very encouraging things in our passage today, I think. First, we’re reminded that getting tired, even so weary that we faint, is not something that only the weak do. Everyone gets tired. Everyone needs to be renewed. Everyone has the possibility of stumbling and falling.

Second, God is there to renew those who wait for him. It’s a simple response to a simple problem. We need renewed strength, and God is there to renew it.

We’re coming up on the weekend. This evening, many people will be even happier than they were this morning. They can thank God that Friday is over. But what will happen with your weekend? Will you meet Monday renewed? I know that some of you will be working over the weekend, so you can apply this when you come up on your days off.

I took a Sunday School group to visit a synagogue, and the Rabbi there told us that the Sabbath prayers included only thanks to God, not requests for other things. Members of my group were astonished. Why wouldn’t you ask God for things when you pray on the Sabbath?

The Rabbi explained. Supposing a rich friend or relative came along and gave you a new motor home as a gift. You wouldn’t turn around and say, “Now please give me a boat as well,” would you?

That is what it would be like to ask for things in your Sabbath prayer. God has given you a wonderful gift of the Sabbath rest. You can’t possibly be so greedy that you’re going to ask for something else at the same time, are you?

As Christians we look to more than just a day of rest. Hebrews says that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). I believe that this rest can come at many times. If you are unable to get your “sabbath” when you would prefer, dedicate some time when you are actually off work to spend time with God and be renewed.

It’s a gift of God throughout the year.

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Thursday Morning Devotion (The Privilege of a Call)

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

10This is what the Lord YHWH says: “Look! I am against the shepherds, so I will seek my sheep from their hand, and I will cut off the shepherds of the sheep, and they will no longer tend them, but I will save my sheep from their mouth, and they will no longer be food for them. 11For this is what the Lord YHWH says: “I, even I myself, will look for my sheep and I will tend them. 12As a shepherd tends his flock when he is among them after they have been scattered, so I will tend my sheep, and I will save them from all the places to which they have been scattered in a day of clouds and deep darkness. — Ezekiel 34:10-12

There are a number of ways in which you can look at a passage of scripture. First, and primary, is what it meant to the people who first heard it. In this case, this was addressed to Israel in the time of the exile. There is both a literal and a spiritual sense to it. Second, we can take the metaphor and look at it in a different time and place. For example, this verse would apply in principle, I believe, to a pastor or evangelist who called people to the Lord under his care and then abuses that position of power. God will judge that person, but he is going to go after his faithful sheep himself. There is a message of hope here for those who have been betrayed by human leaders. God is in control and he still cares for you.

But there is another possibility, which looks at the situation and sees some other reflections of God’s love and care in it. I want you to look at our passage in this way today. In fact, I hope that you will look at this passage in a very selfish way. Ask yourself, “How does this passage show me that God loves me and cares for me?”

In times of prayer or conversations with various people, one of the several most common questions is just what God has called a particular person to do. When we ask that question we make an assumption, and I think it is a good one. We assume that God has called each one of us. We have good, scriptural grounds for believing that.

Now look at our passage again. When the shepherds fail, the ones God has called, God moves in himself to take care of the sheep. Think about that. If God can take care of the sheep after he has removed the shepherds, he presumably could have taken care of the sheep before. In fact, I think we regularly confuse what God can do with what God does do. Since God is omnipotent, by definition he has all the options that there are. He’s not short on options.

He can do things better than any of us can as well. We are not omnipotent. Our power is very limited. So if God can do everything, and is better at doing everything, why doesn’t he?

Let me keep it simple. God doesn’t have to give us any role at all. He could make all the decisions and accomplish all the missions. He could make the world a perfect place with no problems at all. But God has chosen to let us have a part, to let us be creative people, made in his image. Sometimes we see God’s call as a burden. We think we are being pushed into doing terribly difficult things. But our call is a privilege. God is giving you and me the privilege of having some input into how the universe is run! That’s God’s image exercising God’s dominion—the dominion he gave to us humans (Genesis 1:28).

When the going is tough, we often think how we’d like God to just step in and fix everything. But it’s interesting how much we complain if our own choices are restricted. The privilege of being called by God goes with the responsibility of choosing, of choosing to act like a steward of the dominion God has given you.

God could do it himself, but he likes you and me working with him. What a privilege!

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Wednesday Morning Devotion (No Stone Left Standing)

Posted on August 29, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

1Now as he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look at the sort of stones and the sort of buildings here!” 2But Jesus said to him, “Do you see this big buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another. They’ll all be destroyed.” — Mark 13:1-2

Last night after a conversation with Jody I stopped for a moment and said to her, “You know, no matter what, we can always say we survived the last seven years, and that’s no small accomplishment.” She agreed. Now I don’t claim that I have been put upon like Job or that my troubles have been greater than anyone else’s. We have, in fact, been blessed in many ways, and right now is a time of growth with business and ministry improving by the day, always much more slowly than I’d like, but still better.

I objectively know of many people who have had it worse. A friend of mine has had everything he would have depended on pulled out from under him, and in his words, he hangs on by his fingernails. It’s a tough time for him, but I know that it is also a time of spiritual growth.

Now this is another non-exegetical devotional. I’ll get to preaching about this passage in its prophetic sense in my series of podcasts on Mark. But right now I want to use it in another sense. I’m thinking about our daily lives. How often have you looked and said, “Look at the kind of wonderful stones the structure of my life is built on?” For many of us that is a way of life. We have rock-solid preparations in every area of life. Finances, home, family—all are in order. I like to describe it as having one’s ducks in a row, quacking in unison. It’s a good feeling.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not against financial planning. I’m not against life planning. I’m not against church planning. There was the time when my ducks were in a row, and those duckies are in the process of lining up again right now. The quacking is a bit ragged but we’ll straighten them out soon enough!

But be wary of the moment went you look at your life and you say, “Look at the wonderful stones!” God may be looking at you and saying, “Do you see these stones? The time is coming when not one stone will be standing on another. All will be removed.” I’m not saying here that God has decreed disaster. But he may know of troubles ahead that you don’t know about, and can’t plan for. He may well allow you to live through those to see if, when all the stones have been removed, you are still capable of depending on him.

Job went through all that. In his case, the disasters looked pretty thoroughly directed. His life was left pretty much with no stone standing on another. But Job comes to the point of saying, “God may kill me, but still I will trust him” (Job 13:15 CEV). At the end, he repents, even though he never gets to find out why everything happened to him.

Now my purpose in writing this is not to make you shake and tremble and worry about whether God is going to get you. Rather, I’m guessing that there are some readers of this list who are facing the kind of events in your lives that make you question where you are. There may even be someone out there who is looking at their lives right now, and seeing “no stone left on another.” You may have gotten a bad diagnosis, or a business venture may have collapsed taking your financial security with it. Perhaps it is in your spiritual life. Has a leader fallen, someone on whom you placed your trust, but has now proven untrustworthy?

Let me remind you of a few things. First, you’re not alone. Others have been there before you. Find some folks in your local church (and if you don’t have a local church, find one!), and let them pray with you. Second, God is still on the throne. Even in the worst of Job’s sufferings, when Job felt abandoned, God was still putting a limit on what the enemy could do to him. Third, know that testing produces good results. Job said he would “come out like gold” (Job 23:10).

2Count it all as joy, my brothers and sisters, when you fall into various types of trials, 3because you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4And let patience perform its complete work, so that you might be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. — James 1:2-4

Posted in Bible Books, Devotional, James, Mark | 1 Comment

Tuesday Morning Devotion (Doing What You Can)

Posted on August 28, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

41And he sat down by the treasury, and he was watching how the crowd threw money into the contribution box. And many rich people threw in lots! 42Then one poor widow came and threw in two small copper coins about the equivalent of a penny. 43And he called his disciples to him and he said to them, “Truly I tell you that this poor widow has thrown in more than all of those who have thrown money into the contribution box. 44For they all threw in from their abundance, but she gave everything she had from her lack, all of her living.” — Mark 12:41-44

10So David and 400 of his men pursued them, as 200 of the men were too weary to cross the stream of Besor. . . .

21When David returned to the 200 men who had been too weary to follow him whom he had left at the stream of Besor, they came out to meet him and the people who were with him. David approached them and asked them how they were doing. 22But some of the mean who had gone with David, evil scoundrels, said, “Since they didn’t go with us, nothing should be given to them from the spoils that we recovered. Each man should just get his wife and his children, and be sent away.” 23But David said, “You must not do that, my brethren! Considering what God has given us and how he has kept us safe, and given this raiding party that came against us into our hands, 24who could agree with what you have said? The portion of the person who went into battle will be exactly the same as the portion of the person who stayed with the equipment. They will get the same amount.” 25From that day forward this became a statute and judgment in Israel to this day. — 1 Samuel 30:10; 21-25

I couldn’t decide which scripture to use today, so I used two of them. There are a number more that could be used for this devotion.

Yesterday I wrote a rather pushy devotional. It was a get up and get moving message. Now there’s a problem writing such a devotional for a list of people, or preaching such a sermon for a group. Not everyone is in the same place and not everyone reacts in the same way. A preacher faces this issue every time he wants to talk about service or about giving. There will be some people in the congregation who practically live at the church, and are doing more than their fair share of the work. There are others who never volunteer for anything. There are those who give more than they can really afford financially, and there are others who resent every penny that goes into the church’s operating budget.

When a pastor preaches a sermon on stewardship or service, he takes the risk—or the near certainty—that someone is going to misunderstand him. Someone will be out of balance. Similarly in the workplace, supervisors sometimes call all the workers in their work area into a meeting and lecture them on some subject, perhaps punctuality, or staying off the Internet during work hours. In general, I suspect these meetings don’t accomplish many of their goals, because some people tend to think they’re doing OK until things are pointed out to them directly, while others take everything to heart, whether it’s applicable or not.

It’s simply human for us to look for a way to measure our giving or our service. The world’s measure would push us to look at it from the accomplishment point of view. Is the business I’m working for successful? If not, I need to work harder! But that may not be your place. It may not even be possible. Similarly when the church finance director gets up and says the church is behind on your budget, you may think, “Wow! I need to give more.” And you might. I can’t tell you that in a devotional. At the same time, you might not.

You see our human tendency is to discuss stewardship in terms of church budgets, and service in terms of church programs. But that isn’t God’s way. God wants you to give because it’s good for you to do so. He wants you to serve because it’s good for you to do so. How much? That’s based on your abilities, your gifts, and in the final analysis, on your call from God.

Don’t be distracted by what others think. If you go home from that stewardship sermon disturbed, spend time in prayer. What is it that God wants you to do? If your boss is demanding more hours from you at work, spend time again in prayer, evaluate your life and your time, and you and God figure out how much you should do.

Remember the poor widow. The people around her didn’t approve, but Jesus did. Cultivate that “Jesus eye view”–of yourself and of others.

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Monday Morning Devotion (Of Shepherds and Sheep)

Posted on August 27, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

1And YHWH’s word came to me, saying,

2Human, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel! Prophesy and say to the shepherds, ‘This is what the Lord YHWH says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who have been tending to themselves! Should not shepherds tend the sheep?”‘” — Ezekiel 34:1-2

There’s nothing like a good “Woe!” to get the blood flowing on a Monday morning, is there? You don’t agree? You’d like some encouragement as you start the week? Well, I think I’m going to use this metaphor of shepherds and sheep in a slightly different way. This is not exegesis-extracting the meaning from the passage. Rather, I’m using a common Biblical metaphor from shepherds, and applying it quite differently. Perhaps later in the week I’ll talk about the context of Ezekiel 34.

There’s one part of this, however, that starts from Ezekiel 34. I’ve always taken this chapter rather personally, because it talks to church leaders. Now some folks are really afraid to be called church leaders. Some think that’s pushing themselves forward, and is a bit arrogant. Others don’t feel worthy. Others are pretty sure they’re not doing anything to warrant being called a leader.

But if your church congregation is at all healthy, there will be a large number of shepherds in the congregation, people who work with or help even just one or two other people in their Christian life. Anyone who has the opportunity and the ability to help someone move forward spiritually should take this chapter seriously. Gifts and opportunities imply responsibilities in God’s system.

In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a television reporter who is forced to repeat a short period of time in his life over and over again. This plot element fascinates many of us, and I think I know why. The plot of the movie feels a great deal like our lives.

Does this Monday morning feel like that? Is it going to be the same as last Monday morning, stretching backwards and forwards in a chain of indistinguishable Monday mornings? Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get going each new week. If each new week is the springboard of new spiritual growth, if you’re joyfully moving from new height to new height, then this devotional is not for you.

But I think many of us are stuck in an over-applied metaphor in our lives. What do I mean by that? Well, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd” and he described us as his sheep (John 10:11-18). Now many of us have extended this metaphor in all directions. We’re supposed to be obedient like the sheep. We’re supposed to follow our shepherds, even our human shepherds, like sheep. We’re supposed to be humble like sheep.

Then after we’ve extended the idea of being sheep, we also decide to remain sheep. Sheep don’t get promoted to shepherd. Someone else comes in and does that. Sheep don’t question shepherds. They’re not qualified to do so. Sheep just follow along behind whoever chooses to lead, and if the shepherd is struck down, the sheep wander off and get lost.

But I’m going to suggest that God has not called you to be sheep. I know a number of people who are looking for a better church, a better worship experience, more challenging Sunday School classes, and a greater sense of mission. They go on looking and looking and looking. They’ve been disappointed by leaders who don’t lead, who are fearful, who are contentious and divisive, who are shallow, or who are tradition-bound and can’t make things interesting.

My question is this: Why don’t you go and make that happen? The only thing that’s keeping many of you from doing something is that you’re afraid to abandon the sheep metaphor. It’s a comfortable one, with people looking after you. Your church, your pastor, your church board are responsible to provide these things, after all. So you go home and complain that it isn’t happening.

And this isn’t just in your church and spiritual lives. It’s in your daily lives as well. There’s a moment in a sheep’s life when he should turn aside and quit following. A good indicator would be when the leader is heading straight for the place where he’ll be made into lamb chops. Now sheep aren’t going to figure that out, but that’s precisely what I mean by being stuck in a metaphor. You’re not really a sheep. God protects you like a sheep. He can illustrate his care for you with the shepherd and sheep, but you aren’t actually a sheep!

In spiritual warfare we talk about this in terms of word curses. A child whose parents have told her she’s stupid, or she can’t lead, or she can’t answer God’s call to be a pastor because she’s a girl, or he can’t become president and reform his country because ordinary people don’t do that—such a child will tend not to achieve. Being stuck in a metaphor is the ultimate self word-curse. It says, “I’m here and this is all I’ll be, and unless someone comes by and offers me a new job (which won’t happen), I’ll be here for the rest of my life. Unless someone establishes a church nearby with awesome worship and wonderful Sunday School classes, my spiritual life will remain stuck.”

God says he’ll shepherd his own sheep (Ezekiel 34:11-16). If you are willing to take that step forward into making things the way they should be instead of surviving them the way they are, God is there. Proceed prayerfully and carefully, but drop the losing metaphors!

Determine that this Monday morning will be the last ordinary Monday morning of your life!

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Friday Morning Devotion (Bring an Offering)

Posted on August 24, 2007 by Henry Neufeld


1Sing to YHWH a new song,
Sing to YHWH, all the earth.
2Sing to YHWH. Bless his name!
Proclaim his salvation from day to day.
3Recount among the nations his glory,
Among all the peoples his wonders.
4For YHWH is great and very praiseworthy.
He is more wonderful than any god.
5Indeed, all the gods of the peoples are nothing,
but YHWH made the heavens.
6Majesty and splendor are before him.
Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7Ascribe to YHWH every clan of every people,
Ascribe to YHWH glory and power.
8Ascribe to YHWH the glory of his name,
bring an offering and enter his courts.
9Worship YHWH in holy adornment,
Tremble from before him, all the earth.
10Say among the nations, “YHWH reigns!”
He established the earth and it won’t be moved.
He will judge the peoples with justice.
11Rejoice, heavens! Shout for joy, earth!
Let the sea roar with everything in it.
12Let the fields exult and everything in them.
Let the trees of the forest rejoice as well.
13Before YHWH, because he he is coming.
He is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with his truth.

— Psalm 96

I’ve talked a good bit about repentance this week, and two days ago we looked at the elements of repentance. Those elements were to acknowledge our guilt, to confess, and to make the determination to turn around, to turn from our ways.

In Israel, the determination to change was expressed in two very important parts. First was an offering that was brought to the sanctuary for sin. The second was the offer of restitution, the effort to make right whatever harm the transgressor had done.

In Christianity, we believe the sacrifice has been made for us by Jesus. But there is an element of the sacrifice that still has meaning for us—going to the temple, making our confession public before God and praising him. Psalm 96 expresses this quite well, including the phrase that so many preachers wish they could avoid: Bring an offering.

Often we want to worship God, but we want that worship to be without sacrifice. We’d like to sing praises, but the offering plate is threatening. We want to spend time in God’s presence, but we don’t want to be late for lunch. We want to be forgiven, but we don’t want to repent, and we particularly don’t want anyone to know we have repented. Turning around, changing our minds, even becoming a different person are things that don’t seem dignified and appropriate, especially if we’ve been Christians all our lives. But God asks for tangible acts of worship. “Bring an offering,” he says, “and enter my courts.”

In my own experience, there have been many things that I have determined to change, but then I have found that after a period of time, nothing really has changed. So I tell myself again that I’m going to change something. But again nothing happens. Why? I’ve left off the public element of repentance. I haven’t brought an offering, entered God’s courts, and given him glory.

Last week on my Bible study blog, I posted a quote from St. John Chrysostom, a 4th century church father. He discusses repentance and has this to say about offerings:

And after prayer thus intense, there is need of much almsgiving: for this it is which especially gives strength to the medicine of repentance. And as there is a medicine among the physicians’ helps which receives many herbs, but one is the essential, so also in case of repentance this is the essential herb, yea, it may be everything. For hear what the Divine Scripture says, “Give alms, and all things shall be clean.” (Luke xi. 41.) And again, “By alms-giving and acts of faithfulness sins are purged away.” (Prov. xvi. 6.) And, “Water will quench a flaming fire, and alms will do away with great sins.” (Ecclus. iii. 30.)

Now St. John’s nickname, Chrysostom, means “golden mouth” in Greek. He was known for his powerful and eloquent preaching. I wonder how many churches would regard him as “golden mouth” today if he talked this much about giving offerings. Almsgiving is the “essential herb” of repentance. Why? The main reason, I believe, is that it is a way in which we make our words real through action.

This is a good lesson for Friday. When you attend church this weekend, will you bring an offering to express your praise to God?

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Thursday Morning Devotion (A Prophet Among You)

Posted on August 23, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

30Now, human, your countrymen gather by the walls and in doorways and talk about you among themselves. They say one to another, “Let’s go and hear what the word is that’s coming from YHWH!” 31And they come to you as people will, and my people sit before you. They listen to your words, but they don’t put them into practice. “Nice words,” is what’s on their lips, but they act according to what’s in their heart–selfish desires. 32What are you to them? A singer of fine songs with a pleasing voice who plays a harp skillfully. They hear your words, but they’re not putting them into practice. 33But when the things you’re warning about happen–and they will!–then they will know that a prophet was among them. — Ezekiel 33:30-33

One of the things you will notice about prophets in the Old Testament is that they were normally allowed to speak, but were rarely obeyed. There’s a tragic inevitability to reading history along with prophecy in the Bible, and watching as warning after warning is ignored, and tragedy after tragedy results.

You can read a particularly poignant story of this in Jeremiah 41-43. These three short chapters tell about how the remnant of the people in Judea after Jerusalem had fallen chose to go to Egypt. One person killed the Babylonian governor. They were in terror for their lives because the Babylonians would certainly avenge the governor’s death. They go to Jeremiah and ask for a word from God and even tell him that they will obey whatever word he receives. Jeremiah indeed receives a word from God that they are to stay in Judea and they will be protected, but disaster will follow if they go to Egypt. The result? They say Jeremiah is not telling the truth, they go to Egypt, and meet disaster.

Now I don’t know whether you believe in modern prophets or not, but there are many ways that you can receive God’s word in any case. You may receive God’s word by reading the Bible. I’ve been reading Ezekiel in my devotions, and you’ll notice how many things I saw there that apply to me right now. You may read a book by someone who teaches from the Bible. You might go to a Bible study. This weekend, I hope you’ll be attending church, and I hope that at your church you will hear a message that is God’s word.

What will happen to that word from God after it enters your ears?

Will you stop to shake your pastor’s hand at the door, tell him what a wonderful sermon it was, but forget everything he said?

Will you remember what was said, but feel that it’s just to hard to apply in your life?

Will you criticize the sermon for form, telling yourself that someone who preaches professionally should be able to craft a better sermon?

Will you hear the message, and decide to apply it in your life, but let yourself be derailed by someone else’s criticism?

Will you be angry with your pastor because he preached a “hard” message, and you wanted something comforting? Or perhaps you’ll be upset because the pastor preached an encouraging message and you wanted something that would really show that guy down the pew from you.

The question I glean from our passage is this: Will that service you go to this weekend be for entertainment or for growth?

It’s an important thing to think about, because if your pastor preached God’s message from God’s word, it’s not going to return empty (Isaiah 55:11), and if you ignore it, or even if you say nice things about it but don’t put it into practice, there’s going to come a day when God’s word will be fulfilled, and you will know that a prophet was among you. It doesn’t matter whether you like the message or not. It doesn’t matter whether it was formed into the proper “seminary” patterns. What matters is whether you applied it.

When God’s word returns after completing it’s mission, will you be regretting that you ignored it, or rejoicing that you followed God’s will?

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Wednesday Morning Devotion (Repentance as a Way of Life)

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

12And you, human, say to your countrymen, “The righteousness of a righteous person won’t save him when he transgresses, and the wickedness of a wicked person won’t trip him up when he repents of his wickedness. The righteous person can’t go on living by his past righteousness when he turns to sin. 13When I tell a righteous person that he will surely live, and then he trusts in his own righteousness, and does evil, all his righteousness will not be remembered, and it will be in the iniquity that he did that he will die. 14And when I say to the wicked person, ‘You will surely die!’ but then he repents of his sin, and does justice and lives righteously, 15if the evil person restores the pledges he has taken and returns what he has stolen, if he starts to live according to my statutes without doing evil, he will surely live! He will not die! 16All his sins that he committed will no longer be remembered. He has done justice and lived righteously. He will surely live!” — Ezekiel 33:12-16

Yesterday we talked about the power of repentance, and how it is a basic principle of God’s kingdom that is taught way back in Leviticus 5:17-6:7. I think our passage today leans on that older verse. It’s easy for us to skip over the sacrifices making the assumption that someone sinned and then offered a sacrifice. Jesus is now our sacrifice, so that’s all there was to learn. If you spend time on the details, there is much more. But Ezekiel states the lessons much more plainly.

We learned from Leviticus that there are three elements to true repentance. First, we must feel our guilt, which means to know that we’ve done wrong. Second, we must confess what we have done. Third we must take the necessary steps toward restoring the wrong that was done. I believe these elements are present in the Biblical descriptions of repentance. Repentance isn’t a religious word. It’s not a church ritual. It’s not a transaction. When I repent I must acknowledge that I’m going in the wrong direction, then I must turn around and head off in the right direction.

Think of it as driving down the road. If I take off on the road to Montgomery, but then turn off on some county road here in north Florida, I’m no longer going the right way. I can loudly proclaim that I was going to Montgomery, and ask if that isn’t good enough. I went several miles toward my goal, shouldn’t I get some credit for that? You laugh, I’m sure. That doesn’t work in traveling down the road.

Supposing instead that I announce that I realize how wrong I am, that I repent, and that I will never make such a wrong turn again! If I don’t turn around and find the right road, I’m still not going to my destination.

To keep the metaphor going, suppose I’m going down the wrong road, and somebody says, “You’re too far out of your way, no point turning around now. Just keep going the way you’re going.” What do I think? Well, I probably think they’re crazy. If I don’t turn around I’m going to end up somewhere far away from where I want to go.

Now each of these points in my driving story represent something that all of you would recognize as extreme stupidity. You know that going part of the way on the right road won’t make up for taking a wrong turn later. You know that if I don’t turn around, I will still be going the wrong way, and you know that I can turn around when I discover that I’m on the wrong path and return to the right one. We can all recognize the truth in these instances.

But I’m guessing that nearly all of us have listened to the devil make one of those same stupid statements and believed him when it applied to our spiritual life. “You’re a pretty good person. It won’t hurt if you indulge in just one or two bad habits.” And instead of saying “The wrong road leads to the wrong place” we say, “Yes, that sounds good. On the average I’m pretty good!” “You’re too far gone for God to save,” he says. And instead of saying, “All I have to do is turn around and go to the right road,” we say “Yes, that’s true, I guess I might as well keep on heading for the middle of nowhere.”

We believe the devil when he whispers stuff in our ear that we would roll on the floor laughing should we hear it from another person.

Well, Ezekiel has the antidote. God says that’s not how it works. If you’re righteous, and you trust in your own righteousness and go ahead and sin, that’s sin, and sin will get you. If you’re a sinner, and you turn and repent, God’s ready to forget all about your wrong road and just keep moving you along the new road. Did you notice that your wickedness won’t even be remembered? You can have been a righteous person all your life—no matter what you’ve done!

Repentance must be a way of life. Check the road. Turn if you need to. It’s God’s plan.

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Tuesday Morning Devotion (Judgment or Repentance)

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

10Now, human, say to the Israelites, “You have said, ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are weighing us down, and we are wasting away under them. How can we go on living?'” 11Say to them, “As I live–a declaration of the Lord YHWH–I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Rather, I take pleasure when the wicked person turns from his way and lives. Turn! Turn from your wicked ways. Why will you die, house of Israel?” — Ezekiel 33:10-11

[Note, I get a little technical in the middle of this one. Please bear with me. I think the lesson is worth it!–HN]

There are some passages of scripture, that while addressed to a specific group of people at a specific time, express universal kingdom principles. What I mean by a “kingdom principle” is a fundamental attitude or law of living in the kingdom of God that characterizes what it means to be Christian. This passage is one of those. You can get an even clearer picture reading all of Ezekiel 33, and if you want to broaden your horizons even more, take Ezekiel 33-36 in one sitting, and then do Ezekiel 37 for dessert!

In the devotional yesterday, I discussed warning. A watchman is to warn people of the danger, and if they don’t listen it is their responsibility. In verses 6-9 we are told that if the watchman doesn’t give the warning, it is then the watchman’s responsibility. We can also learn something of the prophetic role as Ezekiel is reminded that he has been appointed as a watchman for the Israelites.

Now our human attitude, bluntly, is that people don’t change. Oh, we talk about repentance, restoration, and so forth, but we watch the offender closely to make sure he has really changed and isn’t going to do it again. There is a place for accountability, of course, but it’s easy for us to turn accountability into judgment. Our idea of warning is to threaten them with hell fire and then keep after them to make sure that they keep that fear alive.

God’s view of warning is a call to life. Now the threat is real, and the danger is real. In the case of Judah, trouble was definitely coming. But God was not all about the trouble. He was about repentance, turning away from a bad path, and turning to a good path.

The sacrificial system of the Pentateuch is designed to teach. One of the things it teaches is repentance. But you will look in vain to find an obvious way to deal with presumptuous sins. Inadvertent errors, yes. Presumptuous sins, no. There’s no sacrifice, other than the day of atonement, that deals with them. Well, except for Leviticus 5:14-6:7. I won’t go into it in detail now, and our English translations tend to obscure this unintentionally, but that passage does provide a sacrifice for a gross presumptuous sin. What is the difference? Repentance!

Repentance takes a sin that is beyond redemption by any ordinary sacrifice, and turns it into something that can be forgiven. And I didn’t invent this idea. “Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish said, ‘Great is repentance, which converts intentional sins into unintentional ones” (b. Yoma 86b, quoted from Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p. 373). For those who won’t recognize the notation, that’s from the Talmud, and he’s working from a source text in Leviticus. This is a principle that is so fundamental it was taught long before Jesus came. He just reinforced what he’d already been teaching for centuries.

Think of the object lesson. One searches and searches for the way to gain forgiveness for a presumptuous sin, and when you find it, you find that it is by repentance that God opens the way. Repentance consists of feeling your guilt, taking responsibility through confession, and turning from your old way to God’s new way.

Do you warn your friends and neighbors with damnation or with repentance? Think about it. Often we preach God’s judgment, and because we have repented and we have received salvation, we don’t think about what this is doing to other people. I don’t have any statistics, nor do I know any way to collect them, but I suspect that there are more people out there who live in discouragement than who live in arrogant rebellion. We notice the arrogant. We tend to miss the hurting.

Repentance is so great that it can take whoever you are and whatever you have done, put it truly in the past, and give you a new start. To paraphrase the Rabbi, it can take a sin that could not be forgiven and make it forgivable.

Are you living in God’s redemptive love? Are you sounding the warning of God’s implacable grace and forgiveness?

Note: For a discussion of repentance, see St. John Chrysostom on Hebrews 6.

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Monday Morning Devotion (Hearing the Trumpet)

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Henry Neufeld

1YHWH’s word came to me, saying:

2Human! Speak to the children of my people, and say to them, “Suppose I am bringing a sword against a country, and the people choose someone from among them and appoint him as a guard. 3He sees the sword coming, and he blows the trumpet (Shofar) and warns the people. 4Someone hears the sound of the trumpet, but he doesn’t pay attention to the warning, and the sword comes and takes him. His blood is on his own head! 5He heard the sound of the trumpet, but he didn’t pay attention, his death is his own responsibility. He could have saved his life. — Ezekiel 33:1-5

Sometimes we can learn important spiritual lessons from the small things of life. “One who is faithful in the smallest thing is faithful also in what is greater; one who is unjust in the smallest thing, is unjust also in the greater thing” (Luke 16:10). I think that principle can be applied both ways. The large spiritual lessons can also be applied in our daily lives in little things. In fact, if we apply the big spiritual lessons in our daily lives, we’ll find that when the large spiritual conflicts come up, we are in practice and we apply the right thing as a matter of habit.

Anyone who has performed an important task under pressure knows the importance of good habits. When I was in the Air Force there were moments in my job when dozens of things had to happen almost at the same time. If I stopped to think about those things, and order my priorities at that point, I would never get done what was necessary. But when those moments came, I had practiced so many times in various simulations and exercises, in times of less pressure, that I did what was necessary automatically. Success didn’t result from brilliance. It resulted from good habits, thoroughly ingrained. In fact, those who know me well know that I don’t like having to make more than one decision at a time.

Ezekiel gives us a kingdom principle in our passage. In fact, he gives us more than one. The first one is the principle of responsibility. You are responsible for your call, for your area of action. He will go on to explain that if there is no alarm given, then it will be the watchman who will be held responsible for the deaths that result. Ezekiel has a great deal to say about the individual in a time of corporate rebellion, because he lived in just such a time.

But I’m more interested in the second one, listening to the warning itself. Note that the warning that is to be given is because God is bringing the sword. This isn’t a warning about random events. It’s a warning to a rebellious country that God is about to take action. The question that God is addressing here is whether people will act when they hear the trumpet sound.

The other day I was driving on Highway 29, and an ambulance came up from behind. Traffic was heavy and nobody was paying attention, so the ambulance was required to weave through the traffic to find a path to keep moving forward. Nobody was listening to the alarm. I pulled off on the shoulder—I was conveniently located in the right lane, and suddenly behind me a dozen or so other cars decided to pull off the road as well, creating a path. I don’t know for sure that I was first, but someone broke the spell and started everyone on the right path in response to the alarm.

There are many things that might make someone ignore an alarm. One possibility is that we get into the habit of ignoring alarms. We’ve heard too many of them, or at least we think we have. Another is that alarms are a bother. After any tornado or even after hurricanes, there will be someone who didn’t heed the alarm to evacuate. Some may have stubbornly decided to ride out the storm. But others will simply have waited until it was too late. The first hurricane I experienced after moving to Pensacola was Hurricane Erin. I dithered about leaving town. I had the money, my vehicle prepared, and a good place to go, but I didn’t want to do it. Finally I decided to leave. I managed to get about five miles from home and realized that the hurricane was going to hit before I made it out.

In our daily lives there are constant warnings. Some we pay attention to. Others we don’t. When we get into the habit of ignoring warnings, however, we can come to the time when the storm is coming and it’s too late for us to move.

In our spiritual lives, if we constantly reject warnings that God sends us, we can get into the habit. Then when the big spiritual storm comes, we’re likely to hold off on any action until it’s too late.

Are you in the habit of hearing the trumpet?

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