Do Not Lean Toward a Corrupt Culture
The Scriptures don’t tell us much about Jotham, the 11th king of Judah. We know merely that he became king when he was twenty-five years of age and reigned for sixteen years. During those sixteen years, he built the upper gate of the temple, strengthened the wall of Ophel in Jerusalem, built cities and fortified towns in Judah to strengthen the nation, and he collected tribute from the Ammonites for three years after defeating them in battle. Oh, and Scripture also informs us that his mother was Jerushah, and that she and Uzziah raised Jotham to be faithful to God. 2 Chronicles 27:2 reports, “He did what was right in the sight of the Lord,” and 2 Chronicles 27:6 adds, “Jotham became strong because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.” Jotham stayed faithful to God even though “the people still followed corrupt practices” (2 Chronicles 27:2).
Many of the kings of Judah followed the corruption that surrounded them. They leaned into the evil practices that were common in their country. But Jotham followed the lead of God rather than the lead of the prevailing culture.
Our English word obey comes from the Old French word obeir. The first part of that word, ob, means, “in the direction of.” The second part of the word is shortened from audire, from which we get the word audio; it means “to hear.” To obey is, literally, to hear toward.
Despite the fact that so many people in Judah “followed corrupt practices,” Jotham did not hear toward the prevailing, corrupt culture that surrounded him. He heard, instead, toward God. Because of that, “he did what was right in the sight of the Lord,” and he “became strong because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.”
Ben Patterson shares a story from his life that is pertinent to the lesson we can learn from Jotham: “In 1988, three friends and I climbed Mount Lyell, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park. Two of us were experienced mountaineers. I was not one of the experienced two…. As the hours passed, the two mountaineers opened up a wide gap between me and my less experienced companion. Being competitive by nature, I began to look for shortcuts to beat them to the top. I thought I saw one to the right of an outcropping of rock—so I went, deaf to the protests of my companion….
“Thirty minutes later I was trapped in a cul-de-sac of rock atop the Lyell Glacier, looking down several hundred feet of a sheer slope of ice, pitched at about a forty-five-degree angle…. I was only about ten feet from the safety of a rock, but one little slip and I wouldn’t stop sliding until I landed in the valley floor some fifty miles away! It was nearly noon, and the warm sun had the glacier glistening with slippery ice. I was stuck and I was scared.
“It took an hour for my experienced climbing friends to find me. Standing on the rock I wanted to reach, one of them leaned out and used an ice axe to chip two little footsteps in the glacier. Then he gave me the following instructions: ‘Ben, you must step out from where you are and put your foot where the first foothold is. When your foot touches it, without a moment’s hesitation swing your other foot across and land it on the next step. When you do that, reach out and I will take your hand and pull you to safety.’
“That sounded real good to me. It was the next thing he said that made me more frightened than ever. ‘But listen carefully: As you step across, do not lean into the mountain! If anything, lean out a bit. Otherwise, your feet may fly out from under you, and you will start sliding down.’
“I don’t like precipices. When I am on the edge of a cliff, my instincts are to lie down and hug the mountain, to become one with it, not to lean away from it! But that was what my good friend was telling me to do. I looked at him real hard…. Was there any reason, any reason at all, that I should not trust him? I certainly hoped not! So for a moment, based solely on what I believed to be the good will and good sense of my friend, I decided to say no to what I felt, to stifle my impulse to cling to the security of the mountain, to lean out, step out, and traverse the ice to safety. It took less than two seconds to find out if my faith was well founded. It was.”
Many kings of Judah leaned into the corruption that surrounded them, and they fell into sin. The lesson we can learn from Jotham is to lean away from the prevailing culture, and to listen toward God instead.
Henry Ward Beecher stated, “The strength and the happiness of a person consist in finding out the way in which God is going, and in going in that way, too. ´ That’s what Jotham did. We would do well to follow his example.
Learn to be Humble, and Learn to be Wary of those who are not
Uzziah became king of Judah at 16 years of age in about 792 B.C. He reigned for 52 years. Uzziah was a tremendous king through most of his reign. 2 Chronicles 26:5 reports, “He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.”
But late in his life, Uzziah began to buy into the mindset of the neighboring nations. He began to see himself not only as king but also as priest to his people—as the means by which the people would draw close to God. He entered the temple, as if the temple were his own, as if he had authority over what happened in the house of God. He began to do what the Law clearly reserved for the priests alone to do. He began to burn incense on the altar.
Azariah, the high priest, along with eighty other priests confronted Uzziah and told him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to make offering to the Lord, but for the priests the descendants of Aaron, who are consecrated to make offering. Go out of the sanctuary; for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God” (2 Chronicles 26:18).
Uzziah, however, had come to a point in his thinking where he did not like any of his subjects telling him what he could or couldn’t do. He raged at them. But as he raged, God intervened. God struck Uzziah with leprosy. As a result, this king—who looked upon himself as high and lofty—became an outcast. By law, a leper had to live apart from others, so 2 Chronicles 26:21 reports that Uzziah “lived in a separate house,” which is a polite way of saying that the king was quarantined as a leper in isolated quarters until he died.
Why did the priests—and why did God—make such a fuss over Uzziah trying to burn incense in the temple? Because the priests and God recognized the danger of anyone less than Jesus trying to take the roles of both king and priest—the danger of blind devotion being paid to fallible mortals.
One of the reasons why Scripture had imposed limits to what the king could do was to teach even the king obedience. In their book How People Grow, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend share, “Obedience is to look outside ourselves for our purpose, values, and decisions. This essential stance of life admits that God knows better than we do how to guide our steps. And it is the only way to truly live, for he is life itself” (p. 283).
Uzziah did well in his life, and the nation did well, when he set himself to seek God, and when he was instructed in the fear of the Lord.
J. Oswald Sanders points out, “Humility is the hallmark of the one whom God can use.” Thomas Merton prayed, “Give me humility, in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride, which is the heaviest of burdens.” Uzziah did well when he was guided by humbleness rather than when he tried to put himself in a place that would call for blind devotion to him.
Two lessons we should learn from Uzziah:
1: Be humble before God. Let God be God, and let us focus on doing whatever it is that God calls us to do.
2: Be wary of any leader who would seek to put himself or herself in a position that would call for our blind devotion. God alone is worthy of our devotion.
God Does What Pleases God to Do
The God we worship is not an emotionless principle nor an apathetic force of life. The God we worship is the Creator of joy, the Inventor of creativity, the Maker of love.
Psalm 135:6 declares, “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” As I reflect upon that verse, I think of the exuberance with which God spun the galaxies into being, the thrill of creating the planets (some with moons and some with rings), the glee with which God caused mountains to spring up, with waterfalls spilling down, filling our earth with forests, valleys, deserts and jungles, the delight with which God splashed color on butterflies, tropical fish and flowers, and the ecstasy with which God made beings in God’s own image to share with God in the abundance of joy and love.
To say, “Whatever the Lord pleases he does,” is to declare that no one can force God to do anything God does not choose to do. No one can enforce their will on God.
Why, then, did Jesus die on the cross?
It was not that Judas sold him out. It was not that the Jewish high council caught Jesus in a trap. It was not that Roman soldiers imposed their will upon him. It is not that nails held him to that implement of execution.
It is that “whatever the Lord pleases he does,” and what pleased God was to die for us.
In Mark 10:45, Jesus announced, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In Romans 5:8, Paul explains, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”
Christ’s death was not thrust upon him; it’s what he chose to do out of love for us.
While walking the stations of the cross one day, Brennan Manning came to the depiction of Jesus dying on the cross and found these words on a plaque: “Behold Jesus crucified! Behold his wounds, received for love of you! His whole appearance betokens love: His head is bent to kiss you; his arms are extended to embrace you; his heart is open to receive you. O superabundance of love! Jesus, the Son of God, dies upon the cross that we may live and be delivered from everlasting death!”
“Whatever the Lord pleases he does,” and what God pleased to do was to come into our world as one of us and to lay down his life to reconcile us to God!
Look for people who will sharpen your wits
One event in Jehoshaphat’s life that particularly grabs my attention (for good and for bad) is told in 2 Chronicles 18. Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, married the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen of Israel. Ahab intended to go to battle again against Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, and he asked Jehoshaphat to join him in battle. Jehoshaphat replied, “I am with you; my people are your people. We will be with you in the war.”
Trying to impress his son’s father-in-law, Jehoshaphat had answered hastily, but then he caught himself and said, “Inquire first for the word of the Lord.” Ahab gathered four hundred prophets who all said to them, “Go up; for God will give it into the hand of the king.”
Jehoshaphat, however, recognized that Ahab’s prophets were aligned with foreign gods rather than with the God of Judah. So, Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no other prophet of the Lord here of whom we may inquire?”
Ahab answered, “There is still one other by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster.”
When Micaiah arrived, he echoed the answer the other prophets had given, but, apparently, he said it in such a mocking voice that Ahab said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth?” Micaiah then declared, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd.” And Ahab grumbled, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy anything favorable about me, but only disaster?”
Proverbs 27:17 declares, “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.”
At this time in the history of ancient Israel, weapons and tools were made of iron that was not consistent in how hard or soft it was. A tool or weapon needed to be ground against something at least as hard or harder to make it smooth, to remove deformities, and to refine it. Iron needs more iron to make it the best that it can be.
Ahab was happy with buttery prophets who told him what he liked to hear—who never rubbed against him in such a way that they would remove deformities in his character.
Jehoshaphat, on the other hand, asked for iron that would sharpen him. He asked for a prophet—an advisor—who would challenge what others said, who would challenge what the king wanted to do.
This is the good we find in 2 Chronicles 18: Jehoshaphat looked for iron that would sharpen his wits. We would do well to follow his example.
Alex Elle advises, “Surround yourself with people who add value to your life, who challenge you to be greater than you were yesterday, who sprinkle magic into your existence, just like you do to theirs.” We would do well to surround ourselves with such people.
Here is the bad part of 2 Chronicles 18: Jehoshaphat sought the wisdom of Micaiah but did not follow Micaiah’s counsel. Ahab and Jehoshaphat went into battle against Ben-Hadad of Syria, and in that battle, Ahab died. Jehoshaphat found himself in mortal danger, and “cried out” to the Lord, “and the Lord helped him.” If he had followed Micaiah’s counsel, he would not have found himself in such danger.
The lesson we can learn from Jehoshaphat is that we should not only look for wise and godly advisors, but that we should also heed their good counsel.
Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
Psalm 134 is the last of the “Psalms of Ascent,” the psalms that were sung by Jewish worshipers on their way up to Jerusalem to celebrate the great holy days of Passover or Pentecost or the Feast of Booths. It was the last of the Psalms of Ascent, so it would have been natural for pilgrims to sing the psalm as they arrived at the house of God, to cheer on those who have faithfully served in the temple: “Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord. May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.”
Charles Spurgeon suggests that Psalm 134 could also be a picture of pilgrims departing Jerusalem in the darkness of early morning, calling out to the priests and Levites who stood watch at the temple throughout the night. As they begin their journey back home, the pilgrims shout out their blessing to the servants of the Lord who then shout a blessing back upon them. I like Spurgeon’s suggestion, for it reminds us that we don’t simply go to Jerusalem (or to church) to bless God, but that God’s blessing comes with us as we head back home.
Psalm 134 invites us to “Lift up your hands to the holy place.” This is a little bit of a play on words in Hebrew. The word for hand in Hebrew is yad. When this word is combined with a common abbreviation for the name of the Lord, ah, as in Jehovah, it becomes yadah (sometimes anglicized into Judah). Yadah literally means to “lift one’s hands toward God” or to “reach out one’s arms toward God.” It is one of the most common words in Hebrew for worshiping God or for praising God.
Consider the significance of this. What kinds of things prompt people to lift up their hands or to reach out their arms?
When we see someone we love dearly, someone whose embrace we long for, we run toward that person with outstretched arms. That’s the heart of yadah, the heart of worship. Worship is about moving toward (or running for) the embrace of God.
When a child feels scared or sad or lonely, that child looks up at her mother, with arms lifted up, longing to be picked up, longing to be held. That’s the heart of yadah, the heart of worship. Worship is about looking to God for comfort and care.
When something wonderful happens, we instinctively throw our arms up toward heaven in delight. That’s the heart of yadah, the heart of worship. Worship is about celebrating or cheering the wonderfulness of God.
Psalm 134 begins with a call to us, and to those serving in the temple, to “Come, bless the Lord.” It ends with a declaration of God blessing us: “May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.”
Ray Fowler puts this in perspective: “How appropriate that this psalm, and indeed the whole Psalms of Ascent, ends not with us blessing God but with God blessing us. It is God’s blessing that makes our blessing possible in the first place. It is God’s grace that allows us to draw near to his presence…. Perhaps the best summary of this psalm are simply the words from the hymn: ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow!’ ‘Praise God!’—that’s you blessing God. ‘From whom all blessings flow!’—that’s God blessing you.”
Learn to Listen to God
“The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job.
“Within a few minutes, the young man emerged from the inner office, escorted by the interviewer, who announced to the other applicants, ‘Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this young man.’
“The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and then one spoke up, ‘Wait a minute—I don’t understand. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.’
“The employer responded, ‘All the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: “If you understand this message, then come right in. The job will be yours.” None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.’”
Something similar happened in Judah around 911 B.C. A man named Asa, whose name means Healer, ascended to the throne amidst a great cacophony of noises from false worship, but he was able to tune out the distractive voices of false worship and listen to the voice of God, and to respond to the voice of God. 2 Chronicles 14:2-4 reports, “Asa did what was good and right in the sight of the Lord his God. He took away the foreign altars and the high places, broke down the pillars, hewed down the sacred poles, and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to keep the law and the commandment.”
Neale Donald Walsch remarks, “God is speaking to us, all the time. [Like the telegraph kept tapping out the message to walk right in.] The question is not: To whom does God talk? The question is: Who listens?”
Asa listened. Because Asa listened, he lived up to his name and brought healing to Judah. 2 Chronicles 14:5 reports, “He also removed from all the cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under him.”
No less than during the time of Asa, our nation and our world need to learn how to tune out the cacophony of noises that distract us from hearing the voice of God, for it is the voice of God that we most desperately need to hear.
F.F. Bruce put it succinctly, “The soul’s deepest thirst is for God himself, who has made us so that we can never be satisfied without him.” There is nothing that our soul needs more than to seek God.
In his autobiography Time Bends, Arthur Miller writes about his wife, Marilyn Monroe, “One night, as I looked down on her, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, ‘How I wish I still had my faith and she still had hers. What if I could say to her, ‘Darling, God loves you,’ and what if she could believe it?’ I wished so much that some miracle could happen for her. But I had no saving mystery to offer her.”
If only they could have or would have tuned out the cacophony of other noises and attended to the voice of God! If only we would do so!
For over three decades, Asa sought God’s leading in his life. But at the end of his life, Asa became distracted by other voices. Sadly, the healing he had brought to the nation dissolved. 2 Chronicles 16:9 reports, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is true to him. You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars.”
May Asa’s life be an inspiration, and a warning, to us to tune our attention to the voice of God, and to seek the Lord with the whole of our heart.
Meaningful Fellowship: The Supreme Happiness of Life
Psalm 133 declares, “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”
The word translated here as good—tob in Hebrew—is the same word found in Genesis 2:18 when it was announced that it was not good for Adam to be alone. To be alone is not good, but it is wonderfully good “when kindred live together in unity.”
The word translated here as pleasant—na’im in Hebrew—can be translated as lovely, good, attractive, pleasant, friendly or joyous. It is joyous “when kindred live together in unity.” Meaningful connection with others is what we were made for. It fills us with vitality and joy.
Psalm 133 compares the joy of meaningful fellowship with one another to “precious oi on the head, running down upon the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.” The picture presented here is not of a little bit of oil that being dabbed on Aaron’s head, but of so much oil poured upon him that it runs down his head to his beard, and down his beard to his robe. In other words, the benefits of meaningful fellowship with one another result in tremendous richness to our lives.
Moreover, it was not just spare oil that happened to be lying around that was put on Aaron. It was the “precious oil” for the priests. Exodus 30:22-33 describes this oil as a special blend of the finest spices: olive oil, myrrh, cinnamon, cassia and cane. Meaningful fellowship with one another brings such overflowing richness to our souls.
Genuine care in a community of faith is life-giving. Therefore, this psalm concludes, “It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordains his blessing, life forevermore.”
If you are not familiar with the geography of Israel, this verse might lead you to assume that Hermon and Zion are close to each other, and that Hermon’s dew naturally runs down onto Mount Zion. That, however, is not the case. Mount Hermon is in the northern portion of Israel, along the border with Lebanon and Syria; Mount Zion is in the south. Mount Hermon is covered with snow during the winter and stays lush and green throughout the summer; Mount Zion is like a desert in comparison. The message of this verse is metaphorical. When people of faith live together in unity, it is like bringing refreshing, life-giving dew to the desert.
Victor Hugo once remarked, “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.” This is the joy of kindred living together in unity: the assurance that we are loved, the supreme happiness of life.
A Lesson from King Rehoboam
Thirty operators and firemen died within three months due to radiation poisoning. Many more died over time. And the area around Chernobyl became a wasteland for the next several decades.
This tragedy happened because two men took more interest in their own entertainment than in the wellbeing of multitudes of people who worked or lived around them.
When concern for others is lacking, horrible things happen.
King Solomon did many great things. He expanded the borders of Israel to the largest they have ever been. He built a magnificent temple to honor God. He established strong fortresses in every corner of the nation. He constructed beautiful buildings. But Solomon’s great accomplishments came at a heavy price. The people were taxed steeply, and people were conscripted into Solomon’s labor force. It was a difficult time for the common person in Israel.
When Solomon died, his 41-year-old son Rehoboam succeeded him as King of Israel. The weary citizens of the land came to him and pleaded with him, “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you” (2 Chronicles 10:4). Rehoboam turned to the older persons who had attended Solomon, and he asked them, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” They answered him, “If you will be kind to this people and please them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” That, however, is not what Rehoboam wanted to hear, so he turned, instead, to young men who had grown up with him. They told Rehoboam, “Thus you should speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us’; tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions’” (verses 6-11).
Like the men who overrode the computer-driven alarm system at Chernobyl, Rehoboam overrode the wisdom of the older advisers. The consequences were as tragic. Ten northern tribes rebelled against Rehoboam, dividing the nation of Israel forever.
When concern for others is lacking, horrible things happen.
General Norman Schwarzkopf observed, “The main ingredient of good leadership is good character. This is because leadership involves conduct, and conduct is determined by values. You may call these values by many names. ‘Ethics,’ ‘morality,’ and ‘integrity’ come to mind, but this much is clear: Values are what makes us who we are.”
Rehoboam valued the expansion of his wealth over concern for his people. What he got from this was the anger of the citizens and the collapse of the nation.
Mark Labberton points out, “Biblical wisdom is:
- The truth and character of God
- Lived
- In context.
When all three of those elements converge, we have the makings of wisdom. When any of them is lacking, we have the beginnings of folly.”
It leaves us wondering: What great things might have happened in the nation of Israel if the truth and character of God had been lived out in context in the life of Rehoboam. As it was, though, integrity and compassion were lacking in the heart of the king. As a result, folly abounded and tragedy ensued.
If we can learn anything from the life of King Rehoboam, let it be this: Compassion and integrity are needed in the character of a leader. When compassion for others is lacking, horrible things happen.
Don’t Try to Impress God
We live in a world in which we think that we can make something of ourselves by impressing others. Indeed, we put ourselves under great pressure to adequately impress people. We even live under the illusion that we ought to find some way to impress God. But what could we do that would adequately impress the Creator of the universe?
Former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins, writes of a lanyard he made at summer camp one summer and gave to his mother, imagining, at the time, that it would impress her. The poem concludes with these stanzas:
She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift-not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother-
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Psalm 132 reflects a similar dynamic. The psalm opens by recalling how King David wanted to build a house for God. From David’s perspective, a temple would be the kind of gift that would adequately impress God. But the truth is that the most magnificent temple anyone could build is really no more impressive to God than a child’s lanyard. The gold which lined the walls of the temple failed to impress God, for the book of Revelation informs us that the roadways of heaven are paved with gold. Carved doors, ornate designs upon the walls, bronze pillar, and even golden cherubim that filled the temple with beauty are no better than a preschooler’s art project compared to God’s awesome masterpieces like Antelope Canyon, Half Dome in Yosemite, the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, or Angel Falls in Venezuela.
Like Billy Collin’s Lanyard poem, Psalm 132 faces the huge discrepancy between the gifts we give to God, and the gifts God gives to us. Though David sought to build a fabulous house for “the Mighty One of Jacob,” verse 7 admits that this fabulous house is but a “footstool” for God’s feet. The great gifts mentioned in this psalm are not the things we give to God, trying to impress God, but the things God gives to us out of love.
It starts with David. David had wanted to build a house (a building) for God, but God turns it around and makes David and his descendants into a great house (a great lineage). Verses 11-12 tell us, “The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: ‘One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees that I shall teach them, their sons also, forevermore, shall sit on your throne.’”
The Israelites, too, may have thought they were giving an impressive gift to God by making pilgrimages to Jerusalem to bless God with their presence at the temple (“Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool”—verse 7). But the truly great gift is that God commits to live among his people (“For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: ‘This is my resting place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it’”—verses 13-14).
Our gifts to God are like plastic lanyards. God’s gifts to us are astronomically greater, for they flow to us out of the fullness of God’s love and goodness! The essence of our faith is far more about what God pours out to us than about what we give to God.
Strength for What Purpose?
Many years ago, on a day-time television show, Merv Griffen, the host of the show, interviewed a professional body-builder, and Merv asked him, “Why do you develop those particular muscles?”
The body-builder simply stepped forward and flexed a series of well-defined muscles from chest to calf. The audience applauded, but Merv pressed his question, “What do you use all those muscles for?”
Again, the muscular specimen flexed, and his biceps and triceps sprouted to enormous proportions. “But what do you use those muscles for?” Merv persisted.
The body-builder never provided an answer other than to display his well-developed frame.
Sadly, some Christians have developed such spiritual muscles. They can step forward and spout a multitude of Bible verses; and they can belt out the words of a horde of Christian songs; and they can show off a library full of Christian books, but they don’t have any idea how to live our their faith with compassion, integrity, humility or joy. All they know how to do is to stand there and flex their muscles.
God is more interested in us developing a courage and strength that enables us to love the Lord our God with the whole of our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
In verse 13, Paul also instructs them, “Keep alert; stand firm in your faith.”
On April 17, 1521, the son of a German coal miner stood trial for heresy before an assembly of church and state rulers. As the Imperial/Ecclesiastical Inquisition began, this coal miner’s son, Martin Luther, was asked if he had written the books that were stacked beside him. He replied in a whisper, “The books are all mine, and I have written more.”
Then came the decisive question, “Are you willing to recant of what you teach in them?”
He whispered his response, “I beg you, give me time to think it over.”
He was given twenty-four hours.
That night, he prayed, “O God, Almighty Everlasting! How dreadful is the world! behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up, and how small is my faith in Thee…. If I am to depend upon any strength of this world, all is over…. O Lord, help me…. Forsake me not.”
Late the next day, Martin Luther returned to the assembly. At first, he tried to answer his inquisitors by giving a speech, but he was cut off. A simple answer was demanded of him: “I ask you, Martin, answer candidly and without horns, do you, or do you not, repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?”
With a strong voice, Luther replied, “Since your Majesty and lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth…. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me!”
Can we, too, stand firm in our faith?
In verse 14, Paul instructs the believers, “Let all that you do be done in love.”
In his first letter to scattered Christians, John stresses, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). If we desire to abide in God, and if we long for God to abide in us, let all that we do be done in love!
C. Neil Strait observes, “Love is the ingredient that makes every relationship in life, whatever it is, a little better. Love has a capacity to mend the broken, heal the hurting, and inspire the despairing. Love that reaches beyond the misunderstandings and the failures is a love that unites and encourages. Such a love is one of our world’s greatest needs.” If we hope to make the world around us a little better, let all that we do be done in love!
The great challenge and goal of the Christian life is to become more and more like Jesus. Is it possible to name one thing that Jesus did that was not motivated by love? I can think of none! Therefore, if we want to become more and more like Jesus, let all that we do be done in love!
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