Mercy that Covers

According to John 19:23 the soldiers who were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ cast lots to see who would get his undergarment. This undergarment was a seamless robe. Many think the soldiers wanted this so badly because it was an expensive piece of clothing due to its' seamless nature, but just last night my pastor Fred Michaux of the City Life Church in Newport News, VA opened my eyes to a greater reason explaining the true significance of this robe.

Way back in the time of Moses before the time Jesus walked the earth God commanded that the High Priest wear a seamless robe. This robe was to have tassels, pomegranates, and bells at the hem. Only those wearing this robe could enter the most holy place where God's literal presence resided. The most holy place was where atonement, forgiveness of sin, and grace was received for all the people of Israel. Those who dared to enter this place without the designated robe would be consumed by the raw power of God, and instead of grace and forgiveness, there would be death. Therefore, this robe became an icon to the people of Israel.

I have read over John 19 multiple times and never given much thought about the fact that Scripture points out that this robe was seamless. Is it not very peculiar that the Bible mentions this tiny detail in the middle of the story of crucifixion? The Bible is always very intentional so we must learn to pay attention to details. The Bible would not mention this seamless robe because of its expensive nature. The Bible cares little for the wealth of this world, but it would mention it because it is symbolic of God's grace. The Roman soldiers surely would know that this was an important garment. They would see the High Priest of Israel walking around in this garment and they would see the reaction of the people when they would hear the bells jingle on the hem of this garment. The jingle would remind the people of God's grace and power. So the soldiers, even though they may not have fully realized the significance of this seamless garment, knew enough not to tear it into pieces but rather cast lots for it.

What can we learn from this? Fist it serves as a reminder that Christ truly is our High Priest and by Him we have the atonement for our sins. Secondly, Christ took this garment of grace off to give it to sinners like these soldiers. Thirdly, it is a reminder of how God's grace covers. It covers not in pieces but fully and completely from top to bottom. God's grace covers us despite our spiritual temperature as my pastor put it.

As I was praying and mentally put on my garment of grace and reminding myself of how in other places in Scripture we are told that we are clothed with holy garments I suddenly felt very safe. I got the kind of feeling that you get after a cold day when you crawl into bed under your warm covers. In that moment you feel as if nothing can harm you, and there is great comfort and peace. We can all remember as children hiding under our blankets and the safety they provided us. This world is cruel and harsh and the enemy is constantly hurling insults and accusations at us. It is so tiring. However, under God's grace I am safe from all of this and immune to the coldness of this world. It is only when I take off my garment and began to do things on my own that I suffer from the assaults of the enemy. Lord thank you for this reminder in your Word and giving me a visual that I will never forget. Help me to wear my garment of grace everyday! Thank you for your grace. Jesus thank you!!!

Honesty in Prayer

In nearly completing my study of Jeremiah I found myself rooting for the remnant of Israel. God gracefully allowed a few men and women to stay behind and to tend the land while others were either slaughtered or taken as slaves to Babylon. Things were by no means easy for the remnant, especially when there were some enemies in the camp. Some men assassinated the king appointed by the king of Babylon and this sent the remnant into a panic. They were certain that this would bring more terror on them by the king of Babylon.   While their fears were legitimate and sincere, their prayers were not. They found the prophet Jeremiah, who was also left behind, to ask him to pray to God about what they should do. They wanted to know whether they should go to Egypt to flee from the king of Babylon or stay put in Israel. They vowed that they would listen to whatever God instructed them to do. At this point, as I said earlier, I am rooting for them and was so glad that they were seeking God and vowing to obedience. So you can imagine my shock, disbelief, and distaste when I continued to read and discovered that all along they were never sincere. Jeremiah took several days to pray and hear from God and this was God's response. 

Jeremiah 42:10 ‘Stay here in this land. If you do, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I am sorry about all the punishment I have had to bring upon you. 11 Do not fear the king of Babylon anymore,’ says the LORD. ‘For I am with you and will save you and rescue you from his power. 12 I will be merciful to you by making him kind, so he will let you stay here in your land.’

13 “But if you refuse to obey the LORD your God, and if you say, ‘We will not stay here; 14 instead, we will go to Egypt where we will be free from war, the call to arms, and hunger,’ 15 then hear the LORD’s message to the remnant of Judah. This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and live there, 16 the very war and famine you fear will catch up to you, and you will die there.17 That is the fate awaiting every one of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. Yes, you will die from war, famine, and disease. None of you will escape the disaster I will bring upon you there.’

18 “This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as my anger and fury have been poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so they will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be an object of damnation, horror, cursing, and mockery. And you will never see your homeland again.’

Can't you just hear God's heart in this response? He is crying out to the remnant with love and wanting to show them mercy and build them up! This broke my heart, which I will share why shortly. However, Jeremiah reveals the true heart of the remnant.  

Jeremiah 42:19 “Listen, you remnant of Judah. The LORD has told you: ‘Do not go to Egypt!’ Don’t forget this warning I have given you today.20 For you were not being honest when you sent me to pray to the LORD your God for you. You said, ‘Just tell us what the LORD our God says, and we will do it!’ 21 And today I have told you exactly what he said, but you will not obey the LORD your God any better now than you have in the past. 22 So you can be sure that you will die from war, famine, and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going.”

Sure enough, the remnant called Jeremiah a liar, binds him up, and insists on going to Egypt. If you continue to read you find the Lord holds true to His word and Egypt, along with the remnant, meets great destruction by the very king they were running from. Usually when something I read in Scripture gets this type of response out of me it is because either I am currently in a similar state or someone I know is, or because I have been there in the past. Actually, I too am guilty of this both in the past and in the present. I come to God like a magic genie. I come with prayers and intentions to obey but only if it is something that I want. This is absurd! Who do we think we are fooling? I must be honest in my prayers and if I am unwilling to obey then I should not ask God at all. He is not someone just to check in with while you go about your own way. He wants ownership of our lives. Why? So that He can show us His love, mercy, and build us up just like He wanted to do with the remnant! This is why my heart was broken. How many times have I left God holding out His hands ready to do great things for me, but instead gone about my own way?! I have just recently asked my wife to help hold me to prayer. I, by nature, am a high achiever. I do not like to sit and wait and when I think something is good I like to go for it, and quickly. Before I make any decisions in my life I want to speak with God and honestly pray to Him and be willing to do His will no matter what! I know this is way easier said than done but I hope this powerful, and very clear illustration of the runaway remnant will be forever cemented in my mind and heart, and yours if you are reading this.

Who Do You Belong To?

How often do we read the Bible and think to ourselves, "What are these people thinking, don't they know better by now!?" True while there are some particularly stubborn people in the Bible, most of the time we are no better than the people who frustrate us the most in the Bible. Excuse me, I can only speak for myself here, I am no better than the people who frustrate me the most in the Bible. No one gets me so frustrated as the Israelites of old. You know the ones who wondered the desert for forty years. They experienced some of the greatest miracles of any generation in the history of man yet they were so quick to forget about who God really was and what He was capable of.

I was reminded of this when I was reading Psalm chapter 78. If you have never read it I recommend you do. It is a great summation of the entire book of Exodus. In this chapter there was one sentence that stuck out like a sore thumb to me. It reads, "For they did not believe God or trust him to care for them." Psalm 78:22. Recently, I have undergone some financial hardship. My wife runs an in home daycare and at the moment is only watching one child. We have tried to find other children for her to care for but just when it seems like something is going to work out, it doesn't. On top of this we just had to fork out $400 to repair our car plus there is a pending cost for the ticket that my wife was given during the car accident. My truck has stopped working properly and it is also in the shop. In the next couple of months all my school loans will be out of the grace period and that will cost us a couple hundred dollars a month. We want to be a family that has enough surplus to give plentifully to others, but honestly we are barely scraping by.

All this at once caused me to go in a panic nearly and sent  my frustration over the top that I have not yet been able to land the job that I feel I am ready for. I have worked my tail off for the past couple of years to become a school administrator. But getting to the point, it bothers me immensely that my first reaction to all this struggle is to take matters into my own hand and push God out of the equation. The truth is if I were to lay my life out on a time line I would have moments one after another of how God has provided for all my needs plus more. There are several things about our human nature that combat our service to God but none greater, in my opinion, than that of our memory. Our memory can remind us of who God is but it can also fail  us when we need it most. We forget how reliable God is and how much He really loves us. Our memory can be crystal clear when times are good but murky and inaccurate when we are pressed. The Israelites are prime examples of this.

I pray that my memory will serve to keep me close to God even in the most trying times. Part of the function of this blog is to record God's doing and revelations so that I will always be reminded. However, this is not enough. This is a matter of prayer. I need to pray for a godly memory and constantly remind myself of who God is and what He has done in prayer so that I will never forget that my God truly is an awesome God! Lord, I believe in you and trust you to take care of me.

A History of Obedience and Prayer

Recently my church gave a series of lessons on prayer. The series stressed the importance of prayer and the lack of it in today's churches. I pray everyday but I was seriously convicted by this message. My prayers are routine and lack creativity and passion. There are several points I want to bring forth. 1) My pastor said we we as men were meant to pray aggressively and passionately to fight against the sin of this world. I am usually so focused on repenting for my sins I fail to pray for the bigger picture. 2) There is a direct link between how much you know God and how much you pray. I want to know God way more than the amount of prayer that I have currently in my life. If we do not know God we do not obey Him. Rather, we do what comes naturally to us, sin. 3) If there is something that you are waiting for and it has not happened then pray! There are many things in my life that I am waiting for. A promotion, stable finances, a fulfillment of a calling. Yet, I find myself praying very little for these things.

Why do we not pray? Laziness and an unwillingness not to surrender our time. Lack of belief that our prayers will actually do anything. A belief that God has it covered already and through His sovereign power he will take care of all we need. While there is some truth in the statement of God's sovereignty there is also some falsehood. Throughout scripture God moved or acted in direct response to someone's prayer. God wants our prayers! Why? Check out Daniel. Daniel 9: 2-3, "I Daniel, learned from reading the word of the Lord, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with Him in prayer and fasting." Daniel 9: 21-23, "As I was praying, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, came swiftly to me. He explained to me, "Daniel, I have come here to give you insight and understanding. The moment you began praying, a command was given. And now I am here to tell you what it was, for you are very precious to God." Now we can read this and acknowledge and move on or we can take it to heart and believe the same applies to us. Our prayers can move God to act and give commands because we are very precious to Him.

Daniel serves as a model for us as a man of prayer. We all know of Daniel and the miracle in the lion's den. Daniel's miracle came as a result of his daily prayers, and his knowledge of God. He made time every day to pray and he was a man that called out to God for his people. Daniel was surrounded by sin and a people whose ways defiled God much like we are today. Yet Daniel was able to be obedient and know God and even intercede for others. I want to be a Daniel for God. It all starts with prayer. I want my family to have a legacy of obedience like the Recabites in Jeremiah chapter 35:18-19, "This is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies says: You have obeyed your ancestor Jehonadab in every respect, following all his instructions. Therefore, Jehonadab son of Recab will always have descendants who serve me." Those who pray know God. Those who know God fall in love with Him and obey Him. Out of obedience we experience all the goodness of God.                         

The God Switch?

After discussing my last blog with a group of men a theme began to develop. This theme was the recognition of something the guys called a "God switch". This is a switch that guys turn off and on when it suits them. This is how they push through and indulge in sin, otherwise, they could not bring themselves to do it. I knew what they meant. I have turned off my so called God switch in some dark periods of my life. My charge for them, and it remains for me, is to live in such a way that I have no switch to be turned on or off. You see I am a new creature in Christ, my life is hidden in Him, and my identity shall forever be dependent upon Him. I want to live out of a true heart of love. I am not playing games. Turning a switch off and on is just a delirious self deception. God ask us, "Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and the earth?" (Jer. 23:24) We may ignore God but He is never absent regardless of what we choose to do. We will always pay the consequences of living like there is no God, and in those moments where we choose to have nothing to do with God we invite sin and death to have its way in us. Now, I may have got to the point of maturity in my relationship with God where I do not turn God off and go do something really stupid and blatantly sin, but sometimes I push God away when I am home and tired or interested more in the television than finding some quiet time before my Lord. My God, help us all who call ourselves Christians to never turn or tune you out! Help me to know your heart for me so I will never want to choose anything other!!

Am I not everywhere?

This is the question God posed to the Israelites in the midst of their darkest period. The Babylonians were on the verge of invading the Holy Land. God's prophet, Jeremiah, warned the people of the preeminent doom, yet they refused to listen. Rather, the people turned their ears and attention to the false prophets who spoke soft words and filled their ears with promise. If you know the history of Israel at all you know the outcome, and these prophets indeed proved themselves to be false. The Holy Land was devastated, most everyone was killed, and the few who remained were carried away as slaves. In Jeremiah 23:29 the Lord also asks, "Does not my word burn like fire? Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?"

At this point, you may be asking yourself what kind of loving God is this? The very reason we ask this shows our human ignorance. The Israelite thought the same thing. Surely, God will not destroy us. He is far too loving and kind for that, and after all we are His chosen people. So instead of fearing God and tuning in their ears to His warning, which would have lead to repentance and deliverance, they chose the soft words of the false prophets instead of the rock smashing words of the Lord. The Lord asks in Jeremiah 23: 24, "Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?" We who grew up in the church, like myself, learned in Sunday school that God is everywhere but I have found in my adult life this is not always the easiest thing to believe. If I really believed it then perhaps I would walk more closely with him throughout my busy day and allow Him to be a part of the small details and decisions of my life.

How foolish this is! God does not sit far away in heaven occasionally looking down at me. He is right here! Right now! Lord lead my heart to believe, and remember this always. At times, I am like the people of Israel. I prefer not to hear the words of the Lord because His word smashes my plans and desires. The Lord's words may be harsh at times and smash us like a hammer, but we should never doubt His love and ultimately His sovereign nature. The Lord's words save us from destruction, give us life, and lead us to the best possible outcomes. Even if we cannot immediately see this we have to learn to truly, actually live by this fact. If we do not learn from history we repeat it. Let us, me, not be like the Israelites and ignore the very words that would have saved them from destruction and instead choosing to listen to what sounds good and what is popular. 

This is my first post and serves as the official beginning to my blog. The main function of this blog is to lead me into a deeper relationship with my Lord so that I may hear Him more clearly and love Him more adequately. If you happen to stumble across this I pray the same for will be done for you.