Month: March 2012

Relational Faith

“In what way have we despised Your Name?” (Malachi 1:6)

An enduring plague of humanity is our failure to recognise our true condition and this applies to Christians as well. The verse quoted above has been thought or said by multitudes through history when challenged regarding their walk with the Lord. It spills over our lips because we are in the dark regarding the holy ways of our Lord and our own fallen state.

Israel was going through all the outward evidences of a true relationship with God but their heart was not in it. Their heart was not in their worship of the Lord and this led to lying to and robbing the Lord. They thought He would not notice that they were robbing Him of true worship. Counterfeit worship does not measure up or please the Lord.

They were despising the name of the Lord by giving Him less than the best. The animal sacrifices that were supposed to picture the sinless Christ were blind, lame or sick (1:8). The corruption of the image revealed that their worship was also corrupt and unacceptable. If we spend time with the Lord or give time to ministry to others only if we have spare time and there is nothing else to do, and we only give money if there is anything left over after we have spent on ourselves, are we not also despising His name?

Among other revelations of Israel’s falling short in Malachi is that they did not trust the Lord to provide for them (3:8-10). In order to ensure sufficient for their future Israel did not give the tithe to the Lord and short changed Him in their offerings and sacrifices. God says they were robbing Him (v 8) but also robbing themselves (v 10).

The matter of giving of time and money is closely related to faith and trust in the Lord. Giving is not a legalistic requirement, it is relational. Paul records that some believers had given “according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing … but they first gave themselves to the Lord” (2 Corinthians 8:3, 5). They did this because of the relationship they had with Jesus Christ not because of some religious requirement. They trusted their tomorrow in His hands.

When we withhold giving in the various ways we have opportunity we are in effect saying that the Lord is untrustworthy and unreliable. Clearly there is a relational problem that needs attention. If we do not trust Him to provide for our brief earthly future how can we honestly declare that we trust Him for salvation and eternity? Our children and the world will see through that hypocrisy in a moment.

No believer sets out to despise the name of the Lord or to rob Him but we may easily fall into the trap of doing so. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Jesus is our treasure. Everything else is fleeting, just for a moment.

Patience Has a Time Limit

“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (Nahum 1:3)

About one hundred years before Nahum recorded this prophecy against Nineveh the reluctant prophet, Jonah, was also sent to Nineveh with a warning of imminent destruction. Though Jonah gave no more than the minimum message required, and he spoke nothing of repentance and the mercy of God, the king of Nineveh and the people did repent and call on the Lord for mercy. To Jonah’s disgust the Lord did not destroy Nineveh at that time.

Two or three generations later the people of Nineveh had either forgotten Jonah’s message or because nothing had happened they treated the former things relating to their (great-)grandparents as mythical. The city had grown wealthier and gained in might in the years following its repentance. The people had, in so few generations, returned to the idolatrous pagan and wicked ways of those before the people of the city repented.

Even so, the Lord sent another more willing prophet with a more detailed message that had finality even more powerful than that of the message of Jonah. With the experience of their recent ancestors in their knowledge one might expect that this generation would also repent but as is so often the case in history, both with collective groups and individuals, they did not. Apparently, they dismissed the prophets warning and carried on without concern. That some individuals may have followed their ancestors’ example and repented is suggested when the prophet records, “He knows those who trust Him” (1:7). Of course that means that He also knows those who don’t!

The generation to whom Nahum prophesied rejected the warning from the Lord and the word of the Lord that came through Nahum was fulfilled. Nineveh soon ceased to exist and violent was its destruction. No one and no nation can ignore the Word of the Lord with impunity.

Jonah’s desire was eventually met but not before at least one generation of the people of Nineveh was saved. The generation that repented and received God’s mercy will be a testimony against the generation that did not.

The Lord will not acquit the wicked but just as surely He will show mercy to any who will humbly confess their sin, repent and receive His forgiveness. This is only available through Jesus Christ because He alone has taken away the sin of the world He is the Lamb of God who was slain on our behalf.

We Three Kings …

“I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice.” (Daniel 4:37)

It is quite miraculous that this king who had defied the living God now bowed the knee and worshipped Him.

Nebuchadnezzar received the vision of his kingdom and three future kingdoms. Daniel received the interpretation from God and passed it on to the king. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom would be succeeded but he defied the prophecy from God by building a statue all of gold. In the vision kingdoms represented by silver, bronze and iron would succeed his. He showed his defiance by making a huge statue all of gold. This, in effect, was saying that his kingdom would endure forever. He also claimed deity and worship from his people. A year later he boasted that he had built the empire (4:30).

For seven years the Lord left the king insane such that he ate grass with the animals (v 32, 33). It was only after that year was up that Nebuchadnezzar came to his senses and understood that it was God who gave him the kingdom. Now that God had humbled him he was receptive to reality and that led to worship as we read in verse 37.

Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar, suffered a very different end. He knew of all that his father had gone through and was most likely the co-regent while Nebuchadnezzar was eating grass (5:22). However, in spite of his father’s experience and outcome he refused to humble himself (v 22) and did as his father had done at the first. He openly defied the God of Israel by using the vessels from the temple in Jerusalem for a wild night of binge drinking. He further mocked Israel’s God by idolatrous worship of gods of the materials of which the vessels were made (v 4). For Belshazzar there was no further opportunity to humble himself. He had an excellent witness in his father and defied it. That was his last night on earth.

When Darius, the Mede, became king in Belshazzar’s place he placed Daniel as one of three governors of the empire. He so approved of Daniel that he had had thoughts of making him second only to himself but this raised the jealousy of others.

The other governors and leaders put together a scheme to be rid of Daniel. Their greatest ally was within Darius himself, namely his pride. Pride blinded him to the consequences of his action that led to the death penalty by lions for Daniel. That “he was greatly displeased with himself” is no doubt a great understatement.

Daniel’s deliverance from the lions saw all his adversaries eaten by the same lions and King Darius with a changed heart. Concerning God he would say, “He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end” (6:26).

Century’s later men who were aware of Daniel and these kings would travel to Jerusalem to see the One born King of the Jews.

A More Complete Walk

“Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.” (Genesis 32:24)

All too often we say, or hear another say, that we are struggling in our walk with the Lord. In the Bible we see that it is true that there is an adversary to that walk but we will do well to realise that his greatest ally is ourselves. One thing that is evident in human nature ever since Adam believed the lie of the great deceiver is that people will create a god in their own image.

God created man in His own image and now fallen man is creating gods in his own image. This is perhaps the reason there have been, and are, so many gods – and even so many caricatures of Jesus Christ and God among people who call themselves Christian. This is often the ammunition of ungodly people in resisting the Gospel.

The fact is that all Christians, including genuinely born-of-God believers, are dysfunctional to some degree in their representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why we sing songs like, “To Be Like Jesus.” A great deception is to think that our own view of Jesus is the correct one and therefore everyone else must have an imperfect or wrong perception of Him.

Jacob struggled with God (v28) because he held to his own view of God and resisted more revelation. It was only when in great pain he surrendered (v 25) to God and clung to God (v 26) that things changed. God did not conform to Jacob’s image of God but Jacob’s image of God was revealed for its short-fall of reality; and this very event would improve that image greatly.

The reason Christians struggle and find the Christian life hard is often because we have a very limited comprehension of our God. A common fault among all people is that when we know something on a subject we think we know it all. After all, it is all we know and we can’t be aware of what we don’t know – or else we would know it!

The same is true of our knowledge of God. Just when we think we know Him He injects something into our lives that throws us into confusion. As you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry you will notice this quite often in the disciples’ walk with Him. They were frequently at a loss to understand what He was doing. The same is true for those of us who are His disciples today.

He delights to reveal Himself to the one who will receive it and that will mean wrecking any idolatrous image that we have created in our minds of Him. The tendency is to make God in our own image and that will put us where Jacob was at sundown, struggling and in the dark. May it be as the light dawns we will do as Jacob did and cease the struggle and just cling to God and let God be Himself. Like Jacob, that may mean that most of us, if not all, will have to be put out of joint in some way; but so be it for the glory of God and our more complete walk with the Lord.