Is Anything Too Hard for God?

The Lord asked Jeremiah, “Is there anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). It’s a profound question. It’s a question that is designed to evoke what one really believes about God. The obvious answer is, “No. Nothing is too hard for you God.”  Any reasonable person who believes in the Lord and has read the scriptures would have to come to this conclusion.  However, for a person who is hurting and struggling under the pain of life and/or the mistakes of their past, or for a person who can’t possibly see how things can change for the better, the question may be difficult to answer.

When God asked this question, he did so in the face of the destruction that was emerging upon Jerusalem. The place was about to be overrun by the Babylonians.  The siege engines were already against the walls. Downfall was imminent. The sins of the people had finally caught up to them. Their wanton rejection of God, who repeatedly had called them to change their minds and turn their lives back to him, had finally run its course. The inevitable destruction that God warned them would come had come.

In the midst of this impending doom, God began to speak words of hope to the people.  It began with God instructing Jeremiah to buy a piece of land from his cousin. Even though the Babylonians were about to overthrow everything, God used Jeremiah’s actions to show there was still hope. God was saying through Jeremiah that even though immediate loss was coming, restoration was on the horizon. Though the people would be sent into exile, they would one day return to their homeland and to normalcy. Jeremiah’s action was an investment in a future that God said would come. “Fields will again be bought and sold in this land about which you now say, ‘It has been ravaged by the Babylonians, a land where people and animals have all disappeared.’ Yes fields will once again be bought and sold…in the land of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the hill country…For someday I will restore prosperity to them. I, the Lord, have spoken,” (Jeremiah 32:43-44).

The impending exile was not intended by God to forever destroy the people. It was not the malicious act of a vindictive deity. It was designed for one purpose: to totally and thoroughly turn the people back to their God. God wanted his people to accept responsibility for their failures and bad choices. The exile would cause them to become thoroughly honest about themselves and to stop hiding from the truth of their unfaithfulness. When they finally got real with God and honestly sorrowed for their sins, his restoration would come. When they realized and admitted their need for God’s healing power, they would have it. “I will surely bring my people back from all the countries where I will scatter them in my fury. I will bring them back to this very city and let them live in peace and safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart and mind to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants,” (Jeremiah 32:37-39).

Though the people faced judgment, judgment was not the last word.  It never is.  Hope is. The pain, the discipline, the destruction were merely tools designed to open hearts and pull them away from self-sufficiency. That’s what these things are always designed to do. They open the way for the inrushing of grace and the healing of the merciful and forgiving God.

Know this: no matter what you face today, God is for you and not against you. No matter how difficult your impending future looks, God is greater and has seen beyond the immediate. He’s already there waiting for you. He can and will see you through it, because nothing is too hard for the Lord.

Slow and Steady

Persistently. It means to exist for a longer than usual time often in the face of difficulty.  A person who is persistent continues a course of action without wavering. When I think of the word persistently, I am reminded of Aesop’s fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”  The moral of that story has become the well-known phrase, “Slow and steady wins the race.”  The idea is that consistent actions effect outcomes.  This is true in life in both a positive and negative sense.  What you do continuously over time determines your destiny.

Persistently is the word that Jeremiah uses for himself and for the people of God.  But he uses the word in polar ways to describe each of their responses to the message of God.  He says, “For twenty three years…the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets, saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the LORD has given you and your fathers from of old and forever,” (Jeremiah 25:3-5).  For 23 years Jeremiah listened daily to what God had to say to him and he spoke that word faithfully to a group of people who with equal persistence refused to listen. While Jeremiah embodies a life well-lived before God (despite the incredible hardships and persecution he faced because of it), the people of God embody fickleness, spiritual lethargy, and impulsiveness that ends in emptiness and destruction.

When we fail to live daily listening to the word of God, our lives invariably are dominated by the whims and winds of this world and our own sinfulness. And this invariably leads to a fall. Many years ago as I was preparing to go to seminary, my desire was to attend a biblically-oriented school as opposed to the merely religiously-inspired institutions of my particular denomination (Episcopal). As I was praying and seeking God about this, my wife and I happened to be walking through the Audobon Swamp Garden near Charleston, SC.  We were looking at the various trees that had been uprooted by Hurricane Hugo. I noticed a commonality between the uprooted trees.  No matter what kind of tree it was and no matter how wide the roots of the particular tree were, the common factor among those trees toppled by the storm was a shallowness of roots. As I looked intently at the destruction before me, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and whispered these words, “Unless you are rooted and grounded in my Word and in my Spirit, when the winds of apostasy and change begin to blow, you too will be toppled.”  I knew at that point that despite the persecution it might bring me from my own diocesan leadership, I had to go to seminary where they would teach me to know and listen to (and love) the word of God.

When we fail to listen persistently and when we refuse to come daily to hear what the Spirit of God has to say through the Scriptures, we can easily drift away from God like the Isrealites of Jeremiah’s day. They persistently failed to listen to the counsel, advice, correction and rebuke that God persistently sent them. As a pastor, I see this all the time as I deal with people who are dominated by their appetites and whose lives have become empty of commitment and purpose.  I regularly speak to people who live frantically busy lives that lack a sense of peace and groundedness.  I grieve as I see this trait being passed on to the next generation as children learn to bolt from one activity to the next, from camp to camp in the summer, and from lesson to sport to music in the school year.  Our culture is full of busy people determined to get ahead and grab their share of the good life, yet who do not listen daily to the word of the Lord.  And we wonder why our churches are so spiritually anemic and our nation seems to be in rapid decline.

Meanwhile, God is loving you. Persistently. He daily seeks time with you.  His heart is for you. He is dogged in this pursuit, yet not in a merely dutiful or drudging way. He is creative and surprising; steady but not boring. He will lead and guide you if you will simply learn listen to him.  Will you, like Jeremiah, choose to carve out the space in your life necessary to listen to God and commit daily and consistently to learn his ways?

Loving God Wholeheartedly

First, it’s good to be back blogging on the Scriptures as we continue our journey through the Bible this year. We have been away these past couple of weeks ministering at Camp St. Christopher and simply had so much to do that there was no time to write.  We had a tremendous time as we saw many young people respond to God and offer their lives to him in love and surrender.  Thanks for your prayers!

Our return lands us knee-deep in the book of Jeremiah. Few people have ever had as difficult a call from God as Jeremiah did.  His was to call God’s people to repent and return to the Lord. When they continually refused, his call was to announce destruction and exile upon the nation. No one likes a nay-sayer.  Because of this Jeremiah was not popular.  Not with the priests, other “prophets”, the government officials, nor the king – no one escaped the Lord’s critique through Jeremiah’s prophecies. It must have been incredibly difficult for Jeremiah to continually bear bad news and to be ignored! He endured sorrow and heartbreak because of the people’s apathy toward God and their scorn and indifference toward his ministry.

God’s people had become rebellious, self centered and complacent. They believed that their identity as the chosen people of God meant they could behave carte-blanche. They believed that the prosperity they enjoyed because of their covenant relationship with God was actually something they had achieved by their own ingenuity and resourcefulness.  They didn’t see or believe how their behavior turned them away from God.  They couldn’t believe God would punish them, despite how they behaved.  They refused to listen to God’s warnings through Jeremiah. And while they continued to practice “religion” in an external way (what we would call going through the motions of faith), they had no real connection with the Living God. In short, they had the trappings of faith without actually believing and living by faith. The arrogance of their hearts was tremendous. They wanted God’s blessings but did not want God. They wanted the benefits of relationship with God, yet refused to live in accordance with the nature of God and in conformity to the ways of God.  Compounding their problem was that they had plenty of religious leaders telling them God was pleased with them; that no harm would befall them; and that peace and prosperity would remain.  But this was not God’s assessment.  God was not pleased.

In this, there is a warning for us.  We must see that there is the potential within every one of us to take the grace of God and make it an excuse for license.  We can take the wonder of God’s grace and make it an idol that hides and approves of the sin our own hearts. I don’t think this happens right away in anyone’s life. It creeps in gradually.  We begin well by rightly understanding there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor.  There is nothing that we can do on our own to  be righteous. Salvation is the gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And so we turn to God in faith by trusting that his grace alone will save us.  But unless we allow God to thoroughly restore our hearts and lives, unless we repent deeply and walk intimately with him each day, the sin that is so prevalent within us can easily cause us to take advantage of his good will toward us.  Soon, we like the Israelites, can begin to subtly expect God’s grace regardless of the sin in  our hearts. Perhaps we even begin to believe that because of his grace we need not live lives that are being reformed daily by his Spirit. On the one hand, it is right to rest in him knowing that we cannot achieve anything on our own. Yet on the other hand, we need to cling to him and be responsive to his ways and promptings. The key to living in this tension is staying in relationship to God.  It is key that in response to the revelation God has given us, we learn to love him wholeheartedly. We learn to yield to his promptings. We learn to walk in his ways. Otherwise, we may be in danger of enjoying the blessings of being his people while simultaneously forgetting to remain in relationship with him.  Do we love God for what he does for us and what he gives us? Or do we simply love God for who he is and all he has already done for us?

I pray that we will be like the good figs of Jeremiah 24.  God says of these people, “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole hearts,” (Jeremiah 24:7).

 

The Real Jesus

If Jesus had a Facebook page, which picture would he use for his profile?  Would it be gentle Jesus, meek and mild with a baby lamb on his shoulders? Would it be Jesus laughing as the little children bounded into his arms? Would it be Jesus feeding the 5,000?  Would it be the righteously angry Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the temple? Would it be Jesus reclining at the Last Supper with his beloved disciple John resting against him?  I’m guessing, like us, he would change his profile picture from time to time to reflect the status of his life.

Today as we begin the book of Revelation, we see another picture of Jesus.  It’s actually the most detailed, physical description of him in the bible.  It’s a very symbolic picture that’s filled with meaning and designed to reveal him as he is now in his glory.  In this picture, he no longer suffers.  We see none of the lowliness that marked his life on the earth.  And while he is still humble of heart, this picture is of Jesus the strong, majestic, powerful, royal and exalted Lord of all.

The apostle John, while imprisoned on the island of Patmos, received this revelation of Jesus one Sunday while he was worshiping in the Spirit (Rev 1:10-17). John first heard a voice behind him that sounded like a trumpet blaring in power and declaration. As he turned to see who it was that was speaking to him, he saw the “Son of Man.”  This was the title Jesus had always given himself (taken from the prophet Daniel; see Daniel 7:13).  While John clearly saw a man, the man he saw was more than simply human. He was the Son of Man who is also the Son of God. Everything about him symbolized majesty and judgment.  And it is this reality about Jesus; that he is King and Judge, that fills the book of Revelation.  It’s this picture of him, who he is in his eternal glory, that closes out the bible.

As John looked, he saw Jesus dressed in a robe reaching down to  his feet — flowing robes symbolized dignity and honor. Across his chest was a golden sash.  The combination of these two items declares his high priestly duties before God on behalf of people.  His head and hair were white like wool — he is the the Ancient of Days completely pure and wise. His eyes were like blazing fire — he sees and knows all and brings hidden things to light. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace — brass symbolized judgment. His voice was like the sound of rushing waters — power and majesty are his and he speaks creation into being with the song he sings. What a juxtaposition.  Creation birthed through music.

In his right hand were seven stars — he holds the church, its people, and all of creation together and in his care. From his mouth came a sharp, double-edged sword — his word pierces, divides and separates all that it contacts. His face was like the sun shining in its brilliance– Oh the wonder of who he really is! He is the all-glorious God, the Living One, who overcame death and is alive forevermore!

When John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” saw Jesus in his majesty, “he fell at his feet as though dead,” (1:17). But the Lord touched him and said, “Don’t be afraid!”  John, who knew Jesus as intimately and closely as anyone on earth, was overwhelmed as if dead when he saw Jesus in his majesty.  And yet, Jesus in his kindness, did not want his beloved John to be afraid of him. The message is clear.  There’s so much more to Jesus than just one scene of his life. He is more than a wise teacher. He is more than a great prophet.  He is not one among many religious leaders.  He is God Almighty himself, the King and Judge, before whom everyone of us will stand in jaw-dropping awe and worship one day. And yet, he is kind and wonderful to all who come to him.  He doesn’t want us destroyed and overwhelmed by who he is. He is absolutely for us.

Have you experienced this Jesus?  Do you know him as he really is?

Rumors of God

Have you ever had someone in your life that you first heard about through friends?  They would tell you all about this person and you would feel like you already knew them based on what you had heard.  You make assumptions, even judgments based on the stories recounted to you. You may decide this person is a hero or that they’re someone to avoid at all costs.  You might even warn other people away from this person.   And you’ve heard it all through “reliable” sources; rumors, really.  But you assume what you’ve heard must be the truth.  Later on, however, you have some real life interaction with this person and discover he or she is not at all what you expected.    You may leave pleasantly surprised or deeply disturbed.

Job worshiped and revered God all of his life.  He lived a good life and followed all the teachings about God, honoring God, and serving him.  But a long  season of challenge, affliction and hardship changed him.  Job is spent.  He has argued, wrestled, defended himself, and reconsidered all he knows about God.  Once God reveals himself to Job, however, Job realizes he has just known God by rumor.   Job is both relieved and disturbed by God’s self-revelation.  He is relieved because the long silence of the One he loves is over.  He is disturbed because he learns that he didn’t really know God at all.

The primary rumor by which Job has known God is perpetuated by his three friends.  That rumor is: If you are blameless and without sin, trouble won’t touch you.  Your behavior directly impacts the way your life goes.  If things are going wrong for you, it’s because you’ve done something wrong.  The prescription for this is: Fix it and everything will turn around.  Many of us know intellectually that this isn’t true, yet our hearts insist otherwise.  When bad thing happen, we immediately do an inventory and wonder if certain actions or sins have caused our trouble.  While poor choices do have their consequences, there is no hard and fast rule that says, “If you’re good, nothing will go wrong for you.”  You can change your behavior and the challenge you’re facing may continue anyway. That’s what Job discovered.

But this changed when God revealed himself to Job.  Job dropped his false understanding of God and admitted, “I babbled about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head,” (Job 42:3 Msg). Ultimately, God’s self-revelation not only righted Job’s misunderstandings, but also led Job to a place of humility and acceptance. “I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand – from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry – forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor,” (Job 42: 4-6 Msg).

Do you really know God or do you rely on “hearsay” and “crumbs of rumor” about him?  The good news is that you can know him intimately and personally.  God has revealed himself in a myriad of ways to us.  We can know him as the Holy Spirit reveals God to us in Scripture, through other believers, through creation, through the events of our lives.  We can know him most clearly through his Son Jesus Christ, who is the very image of the invisible God. It’s important when we face trials like those Job faced that we not rely on misinformation or rumors of God. Like Job, we need to sit with God in the pain and questioning until God clearly reveals himself to us.

God Questions

God’s silence is deafening.  The struggle is immense.  It has gone on and on.  Back and forth.  We’ve endured the arguments between Job and his friends and Job to God.  We’ve gained insight into the shortcomings of human wisdom.  No one can adequately explain or make sense of the suffering Job has withstood.  And truthfully, none of us can wrap our minds around the mind of God.  Chapters 38 and 39 of Job are awe inspiring and reveal God’s majesty and how his very being is simply beyond our understanding.

Job’s friends have suggested suffering comes only to the evil as punishment from God.  Repent of your sin and the suffering will end.  But Job knows this is a false understanding of God.  We may find it easier to blame God for suffering, but that is to fall short of knowing the truth of his character.  The truth of his character reveals an abundance of righteousness.  God is right.  He is not evil nor does he ordain or cause evil in the world.  Adam and Eve’s choice to move away from God and to seek from understanding beyond what God had for them ushered in evil to the world.  Evil, at its core, is the absence of God.  Suffering is a direct result of evil.  Not God.

Reading Job today allows us to take a breath of ease if we have been suffering.  While God is silent for the major portion of the book he is hardly absent.  When he finally appears, it’s clear he has not been distracted or otherwise engaged.  He is fully aware of all that has transpired in Job’s life and the arguments between Job and his friends.  Rather than defend himself, God chooses to reveal himself.  His is a commanding presence that requires all of us watching and listening to stop in reverent awe.  Taking center stage, he ends the debate by asking some profound and revealing questions.

These questions open the door to consider him in the truth of his being beyond the scope of suffering.  His questions are a welcome relief from the arguments gone round and round trying to solve the dilemma of suffering with the human mind.  The truth is we simply cannot.  We cannot resolve God sized issues with the extraordinary limitations of our human minds.  The vastness of who God is and what He knows is only a pin drop in our consciousness.  We can’t know what we simply don’t know.  It is pride to think we can.

Each question God poses to Job and his friends sweeps back the curtain of his majesty and his strength.  There are hardly words to describe how inept and insignificant one feels to follow God’s queries and to recognize how close to simple dust we are.  God’s questions reveal the heart of who He is in the splendor of his glory.  And no one can remotely access it but by God’s permission himself.  In asking Job these questions, he simultaneously challenges Job to understand him while pointing out that there is no way to fully comprehend him.  Even partial comprehension seems an extraordinary leap of our limited minds.

God’s questions are worthy of a second read.  A third, fourth, fifth…well, they are worthy of pondering for the rest of our lives.  They offer us rest in the midst of our trial to let go of our control and slip into a place of yielded trust to Him.  He is so much greater.  He is so much wiser.  He has ideas and purposes we can’t begin to articulate in our minds.  So once you have wearied of the wrestling and struggle, walk into these questions with the space of being simply the created walking hand in hand with the Creator.  And the Creator is good.  In his immense proportion to ourselves, we can rest in the knowledge that out of His great love for us he created us.  He has plans and purposes beyond our skirmishes today.

God’s Love

“If you love me, why are you treating me this way?  Wouldn’t love treat me better than this?”

That was my heart’s cry to God in the middle of the night on a cold basement floor in Ambridge, Pennsylvania in 1997. I was in my first year of seminary and life looked bleak. My father had recently died. We had moved from the South to the North and were experiencing both culture shock and seasonal affective disorder.  We had to relocate 2 more times in a span of four months due to terrible and unsafe housing situations — and that with a 3 year old and a very pregnant wife. Our last move came as the result of a plumbing issue that caused our basement to back up with all the sanitation waste from the houses on the hill above us.  The wretched filth destroyed all of our family pictures and important mementos.   The timing of the last move came just days before Christmas – we could barely celebrate due to boxes and exhaustion.  By January it was utterly bleak.  We had 15 days straight of ice and snow; and not the pretty, serene kind you see on postcards and movies. This was infused with the pollution of steel country and had a greyish black look to it.   At three in the morning I was up and in my study in the dark, cold basement. My heart boiled over at that point.

I wept before the Lord. I was confused and disappointed.  I had left my lucrative and rising career to serve God with my life. I had removed my young family from all that was known and safe to us and jumped on what felt like “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” I was missing my father, whom I had led to faith in Christ not long before his death.  It seemed as though I had just gotten him back and he was taken away from me again. And perhaps the worst part of it, I was spiritually empty.  I had come to a community of faith where people were joyfully loving and serving God, yet to me, the experience was as dry as  dust in my mouth.

I cried out to God, “If you love me, why are you treating me this way?  Wouldn’t love treat me better than this?” As I lay on the floor splayed out before the Lord I had a vision.  It was of the cross of Jesus Christ.  It wasn’t the pretty bronze cross that we process behind as we enter church. It was the bloody, cruel instrument of torturing death.  I saw the body of the Lord in his brokenness and pain. I felt the loneliness of Jesus that came from his friends’ betrayal and abandonment. I sensed the derision and scorn of the religious elite. I saw the anguish on his face as His Father looked away from him as the sin of the world, as my sin, was placed upon him. It nearly broke me.  And then I heard the Lord speak to my heart. He said, “On that day in space and time my love for you was forever demonstrated and sealed.”

And I had the answer.  God’s love is not dependent upon anything but himself.  God’s love for us is not proved nor disproved by the outward circumstances in life.  God’s love is not conditioned by our behavior.  God loves because God loves us. As the Apostle John tells us, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins,” (1 John 4:9-10).

No matter what you are experiencing today, whether good times or hardship, know this: God loves you and has demonstrated his love decisively in the cross of Jesus Christ.  He has done absolutely everything necessary to bring you to himself.  Let the cross be your guide today.  Keep it before your eyes and close to your heart. Meditate on its beauty and power and embrace the love of God for you.

Who Do You Love the Most?

When I was in elementary school I had many notes passed to me by my fellow students.  These notes sought out crucial relational information. They said things like, “Do you like me? Check the box yes or no.”  “Who are the three cutest girls in the class. List in order below.”  Then there was the most serious kind of note — the love note questionnaire.  It invariably inquired: “Who do you love the most?”  There would either be a list of 3 or 4 names from which to select or there would be a blank line on which you could scribble the name of your choice. The greatest thing in the world was discovering (or being shown by an accomplice) that your name was selected at the top of the list. Likewise, there was nothing more crushing, no matter how much you denied it, than finding yourself rejected.

God asks each of us a variation of the same question. He doesn’t ask it in a juvenile or needy way.  But he does ask:  “Among all the options you have in this world for your affection and allegiance, who or what do you love the most?”

God’s great desire is that each one of us would live in an intimate love relationship with him. He longs that you would select him from the list of all the options that exist. He desires that you would write Jesus’ name on the blank line.  As Rick Warren says in his book What On Earth Am I Here For?, “God made you to love you, and he longs for you to love him back.”  But there are many other “lovers” in this world from which we can choose.  The Living God is only one among many options.  The world itself competes with God for your allegiance and alliance.  The apostle John warns, “Don’t love the world’s ways. don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father,” (1 John 2:15 The Message).

Today I pass a note to you in the form of this blog.  I urge you to make your choice. Choose to love the Lord above all other options.  And then make your selection known by living in such a way that your love for God is easy for everyone to see.

Where wisdom is found

Elizabeth Elliot, in her book Let Me Be a Woman, records the story of Gladys Aylward. Gladys grieved deeply over the physical appearance God had given her. As such, she struggled mightily to accept herself. Ms. Aylward told how when she was a child she had two great sorrows. One, that while all her friends had beautiful golden hair, hers was black. The other, that while her friends were still growing, she had stopped. She was about four feet ten inches tall.

Eventually, God called her into the foreign mission field.  When at last she reached the country to which God had called her to be a missionary, she stood on the wharf in Shanghai and looked around at the people to whom He had called her. “Every single one of them” she said, “had black hair. And every one of them had stopped growing when I did.” She was able to look to God and exclaim, “Lord God, You know what You’re doing!”

Without exception, human wisdom always falls short.  We simply cannot see all that God sees. We cannot understand all that God understands. He alone can see the end from the beginning, while we are limited by time and our circumstances. He alone knows the plans and purposes that he has set in place and unless he reveals them to us, we will always come to the wrong conclusions about life.

In Job 28, we encounter a stalemate between Job and his friends.  The friends have applied every bit of human wisdom they can muster to the problem of Job’s suffering.  They have no answers. Job is also dumbfounded. He simply cannot understand why his life is filled with pain and loss. Job finally turns the conversation to the question: “Where can wisdom be found?” (Job 28:12). Job declares that wisdom cannot be found among the most precious elements of this earth (gold, jewels and precious metals). Neither can wisdom be purchased. Ultimately, wisdom is found only in God (vv 20-27). God alone is all knowing, all powerful, and all wise. He is the Creator of all things and from him everything moves and has its being. Job concludes, “The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding,” (Job 28:28).

What each of us needs, in the confusion and finiteness of our lives is the wisdom that comes from God alone.  His wisdom brings understanding to the confusing messages the world continually gives us. His wisdom helps us to see through the darkness of life. His wisdom helps us to discern the difference between the true and false.  His wisdom illuminates our minds to deception and danger.  Ask the Spirit of God to give you the wisdom you need today.

Your Spiritual Job Description

“Bless– that’s your job, to bless,” (1Peter 3:9 Msg).

What if all Christians knew that blessing is what God wants us to do on this earth? The world would a completely different place– and I don’t mean in some naive way that evil would cease to exist and that everyone would just get along.  What I mean is that if we lived lives that bless in the biblical sense; if we saw blessing as our spiritual job description, then an incredible amount of good would occur in this world and God would be known and rightly exalted by even more people.

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what the word bless actually means, and particularly here in the Southern part of the United States where I live.  People routinely bandy the word about in everyday conversation but it rarely seems positive.  You’ll often hear people say: “bless her/his heart” right before they begin to gossip about the person.  As in, “Bless her heart, she’s back on the booze again.”  “Bless his heart, he can’t hold down a job.”  It’s kind of a round about way of tearing someone down while at the same time sounding like you actually care about them.

The apostle Peter tells us that blessing is what God has given us to do as our calling. “Bless,” he says, ” for to this you were called,” (I Peter 3:9 ESV). You were called by God to bless and to be a blessing. But what does that mean?  First of all, to bless in scripture means to declare or extend through pronouncement or action, God’s favor and goodness upon others. In the case of speaking words of blessing, the significance comes not merely with the words themselves but also in the effect those words bring as the Holy Spirit fills them with power to bring them to pass. When it comes to actions, blessing means to enrich physically, materially or spiritually.  Blessing always brings forth life and goodness and that which is in accord with God’s character and his ways.

The words we speak to others hold great power.  Our words can bless and build others or they can tear down and destroy.  We often think that once something is out of our mouth, its evaporated into air.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Our words land places and affect people’s hearts and lives.  Our actions do the same.  Even the seemingly insignificant small things you do in order to bless and bring life to others count.  We don’t know and see all that God sees; we don’t even know and see all that people around us see.

Ultimately, blessing is God’s idea.  He is the one who gives us his favor and enrichment. It would be entirely  appropriate to say that all we have from God is part of his blessing to us.  He has given us this incredible, diverse, and beautiful world in which we live. He gives us life and fruitfulness. He blesses us by turning us away from evil and by forgiving our sins. He freely offers to all who come to Him his grace,  pardon and promise of eternal life. From start to finish, His words and his actions bring about life, healing, and growth.  He asks those of us who belong to Him to do the same for others. We are called to intentionally turn away from all that is evil and instead bring goodness — that is God-ness: God’s ways, God’s character, and God’s life  to all whom we encounter. When we do this, we ourselves receive God’s blessing.

“Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here’s what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he’s asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things,” (1Peter 3:10-12).