Month: May 2019

“Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”  James 1:14, 15

            I remember studying these verse several years ago and thinking that this is a situation when I would agree with abortion. I don’t mean that I’ve become pro-choice. I mean that if we’re on our way to giving birth to death, let’s abort that process! As we look at these verses, the first question we need to ask is, who is tempted? The answer is each one. Everyone. All of us. I’m guessing that isn’t a huge revelation to anyone. But here’s something that struck me – who does the tempting? That’s Satan’s job, isn’t it? Isn’t he the great tempter? Well, he is, but look again at verse 14. We’re enticed by our own evil desire. It starts with us. It starts with our longings, our cravings, our coveting things that we don’t currently have. Those things aren’t necessarily evil. It’s our desires that our evil. When we covet, when we’re jealous, we’re basically telling God that what He has supplied for us isn’t good enough. Once we have that in our hearts, it’s pretty easy for Satan to use our own evil desire to lead us away from God.

            When we’ve allowed covetousness to take root in our hearts, we become dissatisfied, discontent with our current state in life. Instead of praising God, we tend to complain. It usually starts rather slowly. We begin to praise with a “yeah, but” tacked on. You know, we tell Him He’s an awesome God. Then we add, “Yeah, but if I could just have . . .” Pretty soon we’re concentrating more on what’s missing than on all He’s done for us. It may even turn into blaming God because He hasn’t given us whatever it is we think we need. Before we know it, that thing we’re coveting has become our god. Just think of how crazy that is. We’re worshipping something that we don’t have, or maybe it doesn’t even exist, instead of the amazing Lord of lords!

            We could have aborted this process at any point, but if we still haven’t caught on to where this road is leading, this sin of replacing God with a false god will cause death. Notice that eternal death isn’t something that happens to us. It’s something our attitudes and actions have brought into being. This road to destruction begins and ends with us. It begins with our attitudes of craving something other than what we have. And it ends with those cravings, which we have allowed to become a god, bringing about eternal death.

            Let me just say that we can covet more than things. We may be jealous of someone else’s house, car, clothes, etc. But there are so many other things we covet. It could be someone’s marriage that seems so perfect while our own is less than ideal, or maybe non-existent. It could be trips others get to take to far-away places, or a talent someone else has, or a position you’ve always wanted. The list goes on and one. I encourage each of us to lay our hearts open before God and ask Him to show us the areas where we can be most easily enticed. Then give Him those desires. Don’t let them lead you to death. Instead, share them with the One who loves you perfectly and will gently and lovingly fill your heart with the kind of joy and contentment that won’t be found with anything else on this earth.

“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”  Psalm 73:16, 17

            This psalm starts off talking about an “almost” event. The psalmist says he “almost slipped.” Can you relate? Can you look back on your life and see times when you almost turned away from God? Usually we can see in retrospect what the life circumstances were that caused this “almost” slipping. In the case of the psalmist, it was because he began looking around and comparing himself to others. That’s always a dangerous thing to do! That practice almost always ends in either self-condemnation or pride. In this case, it led him to doubt God. What he saw in the rest of the world was people who didn’t follow God and yet seemed to have it all. They had prosperity, health, and freedom from caring about others. Of course, we can only say those things were true by looking in from the outside. For example, in verse 12 he says that the wicked are carefree. What it should say is that they act carefree. We don’t really know if anyone is carefree or not because we’re not inside their skin. But this psalmist made that judgement and determined that if the wicked were carefree, what was the point of following God?

            Then we get to these two verses. They start with the statement that trying to understand this was oppressive. When he says he tried to understand, that’s a deep understanding, more than just a mental realization of the situation. He was seeking an understanding that went deeper, a knowing down in his soul. So let’s get this picture. This man who was following God and was doing everything right was working hard to make sense of the ways of the world. But more than that, he was wanting this understanding of the ways of the world to bring peace to his soul. Of course, that didn’t happen. It just became more oppressive. The oppression only lifted when he entered into God’s presence. That changed everything. Now it all made sense because he began to see things through a different lens. This lens changed his perspective in two ways: he saw the world the way God sees it, and he saw events through the lens of eternity.

            What are you struggling with right now? What is something that is in danger of becoming oppressive to you? What questions do you have, what parts of life don’t make sense? Don’t let these situations and questions start to pull you away from God. Rather, bring them to Him. Come into His holy presence and lay these questions out before Him. It’s okay to ask Him to change the situation, as long as we’re asking, not demanding. He may change the situation, or He may give us new glasses that will help us to see the situation as He does, and to see it in the light of eternity. That’s when we can rest in Him and allow His peace to flood our soul.

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Acts 1:8

            What do you think of when you hear or read this verse? I don’t know about you, but I’ve always read it with a very communal feel. In other words, Christ’s church will be His witnesses in all these places. I’ve heard sermons and read devotionals on how this verse covers it all. Jerusalem stands for the place where you live and work. Your home. Judea and Samaria stands for a larger area where you live. For us, that would be America. Then we’ve got the ends of the earth. So if this is talking about us as the church, I can feel very comfortable sending money to those whom God has called to go to these places and be bold enough to tell others about Jesus. But if that’s not your calling, then sending money or praying for them is fine, right? I’m sorry to say that I don’t see that exemption in this verse, or anywhere else in the Bible, for that matter. We are all called to witness for Christ.

            You want to know what shook me up when I started looking into this verse? The Greek word that is translated “witnesses” is martys. Does it remind you of a word we all know? In fact, spell check keeps trying to change it to martyr. Maybe you even thought there was a misspelling in the title. A martyr is someone who dies for their faith, right? Well, sort of. It’s someone who gives their life for God. That may include dying for Him, but those same martyrs had given their lives to God before their death. In other words, they lived for Him long before they died for Him. So to witness for Christ means to live for Him so completely that we would be willing to die for Him if necessary.

            I know it sounds like I’m changing subjects but stick with me. I’ve noticed something interesting in my morning commute. I take a 4-lane road and I try to set my cruise control at the speed limit. I’ve been surprised at how often I get a vehicle behind me, rather close to my bumper. And they stay there rather than passing me in the left lane. Eventually, I move into the left lane to make a left turn. When I do that, invariably the vehicle tailing me speeds up and takes off. If they want to go faster, why don’t they just pass me? I can’t answer that questions, but I think it gives us a good picture of part of the role of Christians in our world. I think that more people than we realize are following us, imitating our lives at least a little bit, maybe trying to catch some of the peace and joy we have. If we were to move out of their lives, separate ourselves from society, they would be left with no one to guide them to the Father, even if they don’t know they’re being guided. In order to be a good guide, we need to make sure we’re already living our lives for Christ. Only then will we be able to be a martys wherever we may be in the world.