Trust and Obey

Deuteronomy 6: 1-9 (NIV): These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.

    The hymn says, “trust and obey, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.” This passage is saying something very similar. Moses was instructing the Israelites how to be happy and live long lives in the Promised Land that they were about to enter. He told them to know God’s Word and to obey it. This is the key to everything.

    How can we know what God wants from us if we don’t read his Word? How can we know what promises he has for us if we don’t read or hear about it? God has always been clear: if his people obey and honor him, he will bless them; but if we don’t, we will not only miss out on his blessings, but we will be punished.

    He wants his commandments to be on our hearts. This means we memorize them, know what they mean, and think about them. They are part of who we are, and part of our decision-making.

    And the thing God wants most from us is to love him. This is a real, sacrificial, unconditional love. This is a verb, not a fond feeling. This is real love, where we place him in first place in our lives, and live to please him. Jesus said this was the most important commandment (Matthew 22:37). Jesus knew a truth – that if we truly love God, we will want to obey him.

    But God knows we must pass our love for him down to our children or they will forget about him. So Moses told the Israelites to tell their children about God when they were sitting at home, when they walked along the road, when they went to bed, and first thing in the morning. Faith was to be in integral part of their day. Our children will see how important our faith is, and they will follow our lead. They know if we love God most of all. They know if our faith is genuine. They can tell by our words and actions.

    This passage is called the Shema. It tells us how to be happy and blessed. It instructs us how to pass our faith to our children.

Contend for the Faith

Jude 3-7 (NIV): Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

    Jude was Jesus’ little brother (Matthew 13:55). He was not a believer until after he saw Jesus resurrected from the dead. But, after seeing Jesus back alive, he and his brother, James, believed that Jesus was who he said he was, and both became leaders in the church.

    He wanted to write this letter to celebrate the salvation that Jesus offers. That is what he was excited about. He was eager to discuss it, but felt compelled, instead, to encourage the readers to contend for the faith. To contend for the faith is to fight for it – to stand up for and defend it.

    False teaching was already creeping into the church, and Jude knew it had to be nipped in the bud. The Gnostics were teaching that all flesh was bad and so it didn’t matter if they used their bodies for illicit sexual pleasure because of this. Others may have been teaching that, since we are saved, it doesn’t matter how we behave. Jude knew that type of teaching could ruin Christianity in its infancy. He knew it would be up to the church to stand against such bad teaching. And it still is. God is holy and demands holiness from his children. Yes, we can be forgiven of any sin, but we must never teach that sin is okay with God.

    And Jesus must be preached as God in the flesh, the Messiah, the only way to heaven. Anything short of this is heresy.

    God destroyed whole cities for sexual perversion, and God is punishing angels who disobeyed him. We must understand that God takes sin seriously and does not leave it unpunished.

    Jude reminds us that, even though God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, he let them die in the desert because they didn’t trust him. The majority of Israelites (except for Joshua and Caleb…) stated that God could not see them through to the Promised Land. God could see unbelief in their hearts and he let them die because of it. Only belief in Jesus for salvation saves us, and the church must continue to teach this until he returns.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139: 5-16 (NIV): You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

    God doesn’t micro-manage our every move, but he goes before us and follows behind us as we go through our lives. He is in ultimate control. Somehow his sovereignty overrides our free will. We do have a free will, yet he has ordained all of our days for us. Only God is wise enough to understand this, but somehow he does.

    God sees our first day and our last day, and every day in between. He also saw us as we were being formed in the womb. God knows how many days we will live and how many hairs we have on our heads. (Matthew 10:30). He knows everything about us. This is why we need not fear. He’s got this!

    When something happens to us, it is only with his permission, and God is always up to something good. We may not understand it at the time, and it may not be pleasant or seem fair at the time, but God has a plan. Paul said all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28). God said he knows the plans he has for us, to prosper us and not to harm us. (Jeremiah 29:11). It’s important to remember that when Jeremiah wrote this Word from God, Israel had 80 more years of captivity to go. But God had plans and was encouraging them to trust his timing. It is also important to remember that Romans 8:29 tells us that what is good is something that makes us more like Christ. That is God’s ultimate goal for us.

    God is outside of time. He sees all of History before him, and nothing is a surprise to him. He knows what has happened to us, what is happening to us, and what will happen to us. He is watching as we live our lives. He is guiding us toward his purpose for us. When we follow him, our lives are so much smoother and less painful. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; we are created to heal and to thrive. We can’t escape from God’s presence and we can’t escape his ultimate will. We may run, but we can’t hide. Trust God – he knows you better than you know yourself, and yet he loves you completely.

Jesus Sends Demons into a Herd of Pigs

    Luke 8: 26-37 (NIV): They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

    Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. 

    When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.

    The demons who were possessing this man knew exactly who Jesus was. They knew he had the power to send them back to hell, so they shouted at a distance at him and begged him not to do so. How bad is hell if demons would rather live inside a pig than spend one minute there?

    In the Bible, we find that the supernatural powers identified Jesus before any people did. This is exactly what we would expect. (James reminds us that demons know who Jesus is, they know that there is one God, but it doesn’t save them. James 2:19. Remember, head knowledge doesn’t save us, we must put our trust in Jesus for salvation.)

    This poor man had suffered for years. He had been cast from society. He lived out among the graves, eating what food he could scrounge. He didn’t have any clothes or any other material possession, including shelter. Yes, many people think the devil is full of fun and adventure, but this man would tell you how horrible it is to be possessed. Satan is not our friend, and his demons want to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10). Jesus came along and set him free. That’s what he does.

    But here’s where the story takes an interesting twist. The legion of demons (six thousand) who were possessing this man begged Jesus to send them into the herd of pigs instead of back to the abyss – to hell. Jesus granted their request because he is showing us something here: he is showing that he will ruin an entire village’s economy to save one man. That’s how much he loves us, and how valuable one soul is. The pigs didn’t like being possessed any more than the man did and immediately killed themselves.

    The townspeople asked Jesus to leave. Luke said because they were frightened, perhaps that he might do more harm to their economy. The supernatural is always frightening, but we needn’t fear, God is always up to something good, and he will move heaven and earth to save us.

Trust God's Timing

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-11 (NIV): There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,  a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

    God is a god of order, not chaos. Everything has a proper time and place. This is a well-known passage from Ecclesiastes, and was even the basis of a hit song in the 1960’s. The years seem like a cycle of seasons, holidays, and events at the time, but when we look back, we see each trip around the sun takes a year off of our lives. Each year is a reminder that we are just passing through in this life. This is not our permanent home. We will live the vast majority of our existence in the after-life. I will be in heaven with God, and I pray you will too.

    But God is not a slave to time. He created time, holds it in his hand, and lives outside of it. He never changes, never ages, never grows weary or old or impatient. He is an eternal being – something we can’t fully understand in this life.

    My question for us today is do we trust God’s timing? The Bible says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (Galatians 4:4). It is no big deal to us, looking back, but the people had been waiting for his birth for hundreds of years. There had been a 400-year silent period, when no prophets spoke. But Jesus was born at just the right moment.

    Trusting God means we trust his timing. We not only trust he will take care of us and watch over us, but he will do things at the right time. We grow so impatient, and that is natural, but faith allows us to wait on God. (Faith is supernatural, by the way, and we live at the intersection of the natural and the supernatural.) His timing is perfect; do we trust him?

Obey the King

Ecclesiastes 8: 2-7 (NIV): Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?” Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery. Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?

You may read this and wonder what is has to do with you. After all, America doesn’t have a king, even though 43 countries (at this time) do. Throughout History, many people have lived their lives under the control of a king.

    But I remind you that you do have a king. If you said the Lord’s Prayer today, you said, “your kingdom come, your will be done.” Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16). He is the king of the universe, and you have taken an oath to obey him and to please him, if you have surrendered your life to him.

    Jesus tells a parable of what it’s like to have a Lord (a king). He  said, “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” (Luke 7:7-10). God isn’t our boss, who tells us what to do eight hours per day, he is our Lord, who owns us twenty-four hours per day.

    So, surrender your will to your king. Don’t question what he is doing, but trust that he is always up to something good.  You are either God’s slave or a slave to sin, according to Jesus (John 8:34), but right after this, he says if he sets us free, we are free indeed.

    It is one of life’s ironies: the best way to be free is the be a servant of the Most High God.

The Rule of Two, Three, Four

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 (NIV): Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

    One of my preacher friends, Michael Mynatt, preached on this passage and called it “The Rule of Two, Three, Four” because from the King James version we find: “rejoice always” is two words; “pray without ceasing”, three words; and, “in everything give thanks”, four words. So it’s the rule of two, three, four.

    When Paul says, “this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus,” he means all three of these things: rejoice always, pray continually, and giving thanks in all circumstances. It is God’s will that we do all of these things. It is God’s will that we are happy, contented, thankful people. There is always something to be joyful for. Paul told the Philippians to be joyful while he was in prison. He had previously said he was content, no matter his circumstances. He said knowing Christ makes everything seem like garbage.

    One of the fruit of the Spirit, in fact, is joy. We find joy in our circumstances when we are living by faith and walking with Christ.

    Praying continually means we never stop praying. We are in a continual communication with God. This effects our behavior and well it should. We don’t have to walk around with our eyes closed, of course, but we are continually aware that we are in God’s presence. When something upsets us, we take it to God. When something thrills us – like a beautiful sunrise – we glorify God on the spot. We are continually letting him know is on our minds. This is walking with him, what Micah 6:8 says God really wants from us, why we were created.

    Giving thanks in all circumstances is a little more tricky. We tend to be thankful when things are going our way, but not when we are suffering or under stress. But when we realize that God is always up to something good and that we can trust him, even when we don’t understand, we will begin to be thankful in all circumstances.

    All of these take practice, but they are God’s will for our lives.

Ask, Seek, Knock

Matthew 7: 7-14 (NIV):“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

God is a loving Father who knows what we need even before we do. He goes before us, Psalm 139 says. He is not in the business of letting us down, disappointing us or coming up short in his answers. He is a God of more than enough.

But Jesus makes it clear that we need to tell him our needs. Jesus would ask people what they wanted, even if it seemed obvious. He asked Bartimaeus what he could do for him – as he stood there blind in front of him (Mark 10:51). Jesus knew exactly what he really needed, but wanted Bartimaeus to say it. He wanted him to confess it. Bartimaeus could have asked for some money and sold himself short. Don’t sell yourself short! Show faith and tell Jesus what you need.

Ask, Seek, Knock makes an interesting acrostic, by the way: ASK. (This makes it easy to remember.)

This passage ends with a warning though: Most people do not find Jesus. Most people do not go to heaven. This is sad, but it is the reality that Jesus tells us plainly here. Why would God create so many people who reject him and end up in hell? Because he wants us to trust him. He can’t force us to be saved without removing our choice in the matter – without removing our faith. He didn’t create puppets or pets, but children. We’re children with free will. Love must be freely given or it is not love. God wants us to choose to love him. Trust is the same way, we must choose to trust him or it is not trust.

God knows only a few of us will enter through the narrow door, but that is the price he pays for inviting everyone into his Kingdom and allowing us to make the choice for ourselves. There is no other option.

Go against the crowd and find the narrow door. That door’s name is Jesus.