The Seed of Hope

A smaller filter...

One morning last week I was reading that particular day’s scripture passages from the One Year Bible. I’ll admit that while I always look forward to my time in God’s Word, there are mornings when I’m not filled with anticipation and great expectations for revelations. This was one of those mornings.

I read through the Old Testament passages, which included David’s plans for the Temple, a prayer that he offered to God, and Solomon becoming king. Ho-hum. Next was a passage from Romans with Paul talking about life, death, law, and freedom. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Look, I’m just being truthful. Some mornings I just don’t feel like reading scripture, but I do anyway. Not out of obligation or fear, but because I know that my life is better when I stay in the Word. Period. Again, this was one of those mornings.

Then I read Psalm 15, a Psalm of David.

¹Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? 
    Who may live on your holy hill?

² He whose walk is blameless 
    and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart
³     and has no slander on his tongue,
who does his neighbor no wrong
    and casts no slur on his fellowman,
⁴ who despises a vile man
    but honors those who fear the Lord,
who keeps his oath 
    even when it hurts,
⁵ who lends his money without usury 
    and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things
    will never be shaken.

As I read through the Psalm I had a bit of an epiphany.

The Ten Commandments, God’s Commandments, are my yardstick for measuring the way I live my life, or more specifically, my walk as a Christian.

Let me add something here. I do my best to follow God’s commands, not out of obligation or fear, but because it’s my choice to do so, just like reading the Bible each morning. I choose to, because my life is better when I do, and because I feel better about myself too.

Look, I love the relationship that I have with God today. I love walking it out with Jesus every day. And I love being filled with the Holy Spirit. If I’m not following the life-suggestions that God laid out for us, my connection, my relationship, my love affair with all three suffers. It’s that simple. I refuse to be separated in my mind and heart from God’s grace and His love because of something that I’ve done. I refuse to go back to where I was just a few years ago.

That wasn’t the epiphany. This was:

As I read I realized that the manner in which I live my life is so much more than the Ten Commandments. It’s means taking a closer look at myself and using an even smaller filter to determine what is acceptable in my life and what is not.

…whose walk is blameless…does what is righteous…speaks truth from his heart…no slander on his tongue…no wrong…no slur…

The Psalm calls for a higher standard indeed. Certainly more than just rolling out of bed in the morning and trying to do “what is right.”

And I realized that my desire to “dwell in your sanctuary and live on your holy hill” has nothing to do with heaven, although that’s where I want to go when my time clock here is punched.

You see, I want be in God’s sanctuary and stand on His holy hill now! And you know what? I don’t have to wait to die to do it! It’s during those special moments when I’m filled with God’s Spirit, and I know that my mind, thoughts, and heart are clean and pure, and I’m seeking Him with an intensity that consumes me that I feel His presence and know that He’s not only with me and all around me, but in me, and I feel His goodness and love, and I could just burst with joy, that I’m in that sanctuary and on that hill.

I’d love to tell you that I feel that every day, but I don’t, or at least not to the degree that I just feebly attempted to describe to you. But when it does happen, it’s what I consider to be my definition of euphoria: heaven on earth.

That’s exactly what happened as I was reading the Psalm. BAM! Out of nowhere. I was overwhelmed by God’s presence, so much so that I had to pause several times to reflect on a sentence that I’d just read. God’s Word came alive and I saw it through a different set of eyes and I saw that while I try to live my life according to the passage, there are those days when I fall short of my ambitions. The realization didn’t dampen my spirits at all, but actually emboldened me to live my life to an even higher standard. You see, it’s my belief that if I make a commitment to be the man that David spoke of in the Psalm, God will help me to be that man. That’s exactly what happened when I committed my life to God several years ago.

A few thoughts on making a commitment to life change, especially as it pertains to your walk with God. I liken it to pushing a steamroller from the top of a hill. Initially it takes a tremendous amount of effort just to get that thing to budge. In fact, there are times when you feel as if you’re not making any progress at all. But you have to stay at it, regardless of how seemingly impossible the task may seem. It’ll happen.

Once you get that huge machine rolling down the hill (and you will) it picks up momentum, and as it does it becomes an unstoppable force, with you in the driver’s seat. Unmovable, unwavering, unshakable faith.

Such revelations…

And to think that I received all of that insight and God’s touch, on a morning when I didn’t even want to open the Bible. Go figure.

One last thought before I close, and it has to do with the last line of the Psalm.

He who does these things will never be shaken.

Think about that one for a moment, would you?

…will never be shaken.

A rush to judgment...

Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-

          the Lord detests them both. Proverbs 17:15

There’s a bad tendency that many of us have, and it’s addressed in no uncertain terms in this passage from Proverbs. In fact, it lets us know that there are two things that God cannot stand. Let’s take acloser look at both of them, but in the reverse order in which they were written.

Condemning the innocent…

Quite often, far too many of us make a rush to judgment. We jump to conclusions before we know all the facts. In our eagerness to be right, or perhaps just to get our voices heard, we voice our opinions or cast a negative vote.

We don’t take the time to take a second look at a situation, or to really consider the consequences of the charges that we’re leveling, or the individual that we’re leveling them at.

Sometimes, the wrongness of our actions is escalated to a “nutha-whole-level.” On occasion, our condemnation of an individual has nothing to do with issue itself. Sometimes, it’s emotions such as jealousy, envy, or prejudice that serves as a catalyst for our judgments. When that happens, we don’t really want to know the truth, because if we did, we’d be the guilty ones after all was said and done. Just ask the Jewish nation, who unjustly condemned Jesus, and then in a bizarre twist, were unjustly condemned at the hands of the Nazis centuries later.

Acquitting the guilty…

Several years ago, National Football League veteran and Hall of Fame member O.J. Simpson was found “not guilty” on charges that he had viciously and ruthlessly murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend outside of her home.

The evidence against Simpson was so overwhelming that the majority of the American public, including several so-called “experts,” considered the case to be a slam-dunk for the prosecution. It was a no-brainer. The guy was guilty, and he was gonna pay the price for what he’d done wrong! Or at least that’s what a lot of people thought.

Guess what? A jury of his peers found him to be innocent.

Our country was immediately divided, predominantly upon racial lines. One side felt as if O.J. had gotten away with murder, while the other side considered it to be a travesty that he had been charged at all. What should have been an issue about right and wrong became an issue about black and white.

The real problem was that both sides made a rush to judgment. One side was ready to convict O.J. for what he did, and the other was going to defend him, regardless.

As unfair as this seems, we, unfortunately do the same thing all the time. We’re quick to condemn when we’re ready to, but just as quickly we’ll defend someone or turn a blind eye to their actions if they happen to be on our list of favorite people.

Is that fair? Not hardly. But at the end of the day, it’s not for us to truly judge the heart or actions of any man.

We have to leave that up to God.

Opposing ForceS

One morning a couple of weeks ago I was reading that day’s suggested passages from the One Year Bible, which is a plan that takes you from Genesis to Revelation, from cover to cover, in a twelve month period (hence the name). My wife Jackie and I began following the One Year Bible just over three years ago for several reasons:

·         We begin each day with God’s Word, as husband and wife, as best friends, as partners in life, and above all else, as Christians. For many years our day began with coffee and conversation, which was good, but we’ve found that sharing Scripture together is even better!

·         We “grow” in God’s Word. With all the negative sights, sounds, and news in the world today, the Bible has been in the past, is today, and will be in the future a source of truth and hope.

·         I conclude our readings each morning by “covering us” in God’s Armor, as found in Ephesians 6:10-20. I’ve done a bit of reflecting on this morning ritual, and I think that it’s not so much the reciting of the passage as it is the willful, conscious, asking to be protected from the attacks of the enemy and to be Spirit-filled every day.

·         This marks the fourth time that we’ve done the One Year Bible, and each time I’ve “seen” something that I’ve never seen before. I believe that this insight is a result of being at a different spiritual level each time, and from asking God to reveal more of His Word to me…

On this particular day the passage was from Acts 7 and 8, and we read about two men so completely different that the only thing they seemingly had in common was that their names begin with an “S.” Oh yeah, there also just happened to be two more S’s mentioned in the passage…

The first of these men, Stephen, was a Disciple of Christ. Perhaps even more important was the fact that Stephen was filled by the Spirit, and as a result, walked with a boldness that matched his passion for and love of the Lord.

We get a glimpse of that boldness as Stephen “calls out” the Jewish leaders for their offenses against God and His people, and especially for murdering Jesus, the Messiah.

Infuriated, the Jewish leaders raised their fists at Stephen, expecting him to recant his words. Undaunted, unafraid, and Spirit-filled, Stephen continued with his accusations. Pushed to the breaking point by Stephen’s words, the leaders dragged Stephen out of the city and began to stone him. Even as he was being stoned to death, Stephen offered a prayer to God asking that his murderers not be held accountable for their sin.

Among the gathering of people witnessing the unfolding of events was the second “S”, a young man named Saul. Saul’s hatred for the followers of Christ was as intense as Stephen’s love for them, so much so that his sole purpose in life was to seek out and persecute the believers, and to destroy the church.

It was the final “S” that fueled Saul’s hatred and passion, and his name was Satan, whose purpose is to “steal, kill, and destroy.” John 10:10

By nature, Saul was a good man with a heart as good as Stephen’s. This became evident when God called on Saul to serve Him. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and he went on to write a good portion of the New Testament and can probably be credited with spreading the Gospel as much if not more than the chosen Twelve.

I cannot pass up this opportunity to say for probably the umpteenth time, that Paul is my favorite person in the Bible. Paul was called by Jesus, was radically saved, and devoted his life to sharing the Word and growing God’s Kingdom; all things that I can associate with. Perhaps even more important is that fact the God will use the least likely and seemingly least worthy of us to serve Him.

Heart  

We’re all born with a good heart, you know? We all have God’s heart in us at birth, because He loves us all the same. He doesn’t play favorites. What happened to Saul is exactly what happens to many of us: we fall victim to Satan’s vast array of weapons and tricks, and in the process we fall farther and farther away from God.

What can we do to avoid this? Ask God for help. Pray, not only for yourself, but also for others, as did Stephen. Ask for the Mind of Christ. Seek to be filled by the Holy Spirit. Draw a line in the sand…take a stand…make a commitment to you and to God to walk with Him and not with Satan.

Walk in freedom. Walk with boldness. Walk, as we are all created to walk, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

In and through Jesus we are victors. We don’t have to be victims.