Year 8, Day 151: Mark 4

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I think Mark 4 is the perfect chapter to show both the potential and pitfalls of humankind.  A large crowd gathers around Jesus to hear Him.  The likely gather to see Him perform some great miracle, too.  They follow Him because of what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard.

When Jesus teaches the crowd, He uses parables.  He tells us the reason why.  Jesus can’t possibly disciple the whole crowd.  He doesn’t have enough hours in the day to meet the needs of everyone who needs to be discipled!  He also is smart enough to realize that just because people are coming to Him to listen and watch doesn’t mean that they have what it takes to commit to following Him.  Therefore, Jesus needs a way to make sure that His efforts are well spent.  Jesus also needs to teach this technique to His own disciples.  Jesus needs a way to weed out the insincere while drawing the dedicated close so He can pour into them.  He uses parables to accomplish this goal so that He can see who is willing to ask questions and go deeper in understanding.

The interesting thing about the subject of the parables is that He is talking about how faith grows.  In the first parable, we hear that people respond differently to the faith.  Some don’t care about it.  Some receive it for a short time but then don’t give it attention.  Others get distracted.  Some receive it, foster it, and let it grow until it produces more fruit.  This last category of people are the ones that Jesus is looking for.  These are the people that He’s looking to find through the parables.  These are the ones who are going to ask questions, who are going to grow, who are eventually going to bear fruit for the kingdom.  These are the ones whose faith will grow far larger than anyone could have suspected, growing so large as to provide for a place for other people to gather and learn and be discipled.

On the flipside, we end this chapter with the storm and the calming of the sea.  Listen to the critique of Jesus as He calms the storm.  He asks His own disciples if they have so little faith!  In other words, Jesus has given them a very practical lesson about everything that He’s been teaching.  In a moment where they lose focus, they so easily revert back to people who respond out of their humanity instead of their faith!

Jesus’ point should be incredibly clear.  Faith takes work.  Jesus teaches they way that He does because He wants to see who is willing to do the work.  But the disciple must also be willing to work or there isn’t any point to it!  The calming of the sea is a practical lesson that discipleship is more than just being in the presence of Jesus.  Discipleship means that the disciple must be constantly vigilant about their faith, their growth, and their relationship with God.  When anyone loses focus – even one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples – we revert back to a human being living instinctively instead of through faith that can move mountains and produce great fruit.

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Year 8, Day 150: Mark 3

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As we move into Mark 3, we get a taste of the first few themes blending together.  In the first story, we see the religious leaders immediately going out to seek a way to ill Jesus.  They know when Jesus is doing.  He’s not living up to expectations and He is winning the eye of the crowd.  They need to do something about Jesus, and they need to do it sooner rather than later.  As people immediately start to follow Jesus, the religious leaders need to act immediately to maintain the status quo.

We can continue to talk about people who don’t react well to Jesus’ ministry because of expectations.  There are two stories in this chapter that speak about Jesus and His relationship with His family.  First, notice that Jesus’ family comes to take Him away from public ministry.  They think Him mad.  They think that He is going out of His mind.  Their expectations for Jesus, expectations no doubt based in their own understanding of what a poor Jewish boy from Galilee should be doing, simply don’t match what Jesus is actually doing.  They think Jesus has begun to go crazy! 

At the end of the story, they come again for Jesus.  Jesus’ response is very telling.  When people tell Jesus that His mother and brothers have come for Him, Jesus reverses the expectations back onto them.  Jesus says that His true mother and brothers are those who have listened to Him and are responding.  Jesus makes it perfectly clear that His expectations are God’s expectations and anyone who doesn’t match – including family – isn’t really family.

On that note, we turn to the disciples.  These are people who have followed, they have listened, and they have begun to imitate Jesus.  They are people with whom Jesus shares His power.  He invites them to go out into the world with power and authority.  When we go forth embracing God’s expectations for our life, He equips us and empowers us to be a part of His will!

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Year 8, Day 149: Mark 2

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Mark 2 is all about expectations.  We can look at this idea from multiple angles.  First, Notice that Jesus does not come to meet human expectations.  We could also say that Jesus came to live up to the expectations of the Father, not the human beings around Him.  Furthermore, the religious leaders are willing to judge Jesus on their expectations.  This is where the clash occurs.  The religious leaders have their perspective limited by their expectations; Jesus has no desire to meet their expectations.

For example, Jesus falls into judgment from the religious leaders because He eats with sinners.  They want Jesus to judge the sinners, not invite them to dinner!  They want a righteous Messiah who will come to dominate over the world, not save it.  On the other hand, Jesus doesn’t want to dominate this world, He wants to save this world so that we can live eternally with God.  We can clearly see the conflict in expectations in this issue.

In the same light, look at the healing of the paralytic man.  Jesus forgives the man’s sins, which doesn’t meet the expectations of the religious leaders.  They don’t believe that anyone can forgive sins!  Jesus’ mercy upon a sinner puts Him at odds against the religious leaders because their expectations don’t match those of Jesus.

To be honest, every time I read this passage I come close to falling in the same trap as the religious leaders.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no trouble with Jesus forgiving sins.  My trouble is that Jesus heals the man and forgives his sins based on the faith of other people around him.  Part of me screams, “How can Jesus forgive sins of one person based on the faithfulness of another?”  To put it another way, how can the righteousness of one person bring about the forgiveness of another.  Can you see where my expectations put me at odds with God?  Do I really want to find fault with the Son of God because He doesn’t meet my expectations?  Furthermore, am I not saved based on the righteousness of Jesus?  If that’s true, how dare I take issue with Jesus forgiving the sins of the paralytic man based on the faithfulness of the man’s friends!

Before leaving this chapter, I do want to make one point.  Don’t overlook the verses here that talk about how popular Jesus has become.  Many are following Him.  They are following Him because of what He represents.  They are following Him because they don’t mind the change in the status quo.  They are following Him because of what He represents and what He can do.  For now, they are happy that His actions aren’t living up to the expectations of the religious leaders.

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Year 8, Day 148: Mark 1

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Mark’s Gospel is all about immediacy.  There is no birth narrative.  Jesus’ own baptism is little more than a prelude to the greater story.  Even John’s ministry is abbreviated to the bare bones.  Mark wants us to get to the story as quickly as possible.

Even within the story, Jesus does things with little wasted movement.  He immediately goes into the desert to be tempted.  He immediately begins to preach on the Sabbath.  He immediately casts out demons.  He immediately heals Peter’s mother-in-law.  There is little wasted motion with Jesus.  He sets his mind to something and it happens.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John immediately follow Jesus when he calls.  They see a man of action and follow his lead.  They imitate what they see in Jesus.  They see a leader who is making things happen and they get caught up in the movement.  They want to be a part of what Jesus is doing.

What does all of this immediacy tell us besides the point that Jesus can accomplish what He sets His mind to do?  Jesus knows from day one that there is a race between Himself and His mission.  Every day that goes by means that the cross is one day closer.  Jesus has much work to do.  He has disciples to train.  He has a message to teach.  He has miracles to perform.  He has scripture to fulfill.  The clock is ticking on Jesus, and Mark’s Gospel helps us feel that ticking clock like no other.

This is one of the reasons that I love the inclusion of the last story in the first chapter of Mark.  Jesus heals a leper.  Knowing the clock is ticking and not wanting the clock to advance faster than it needs to advance, Jesus asks the leper to say nothing.  The leper disobeys, spreading the word of what happened.  As a result, we are told that Jesus can no longer go into the populated areas.  We don’t know if this is because He got mobbed by the needy or because of religious persecution.  Either way, though, we see why the immediacy is necessary.  We aren’t even through the first chapter of Mark when Jesus’ ministry starts to become hampered by human sinfulness.

Jesus understands the stakes.  He came to accomplish a mission.  He then invites us into that mission.  We need to be like James, John, Simon, and Andrew.  We need to see the immediacy of God’s plan and join Him where He leads us.  That doesn’t mean we are always going to jump from big mission to big mission.  Jesus Himself doesn’t always jump from miracle to miracle.  Sometimes He spends a quiet day in prayer or a quiet evening in the house of Simon’s mother-in-law.  But Jesus is always doing something, big or small.  We should likewise be doing something in God’s kingdom, promoting God’s love and His grace with each moment we can – big or small.

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Year 8, Day 147: Ephesians 6

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In the last chapter, we spoke about how we should live.  However, living a life of righteousness is hard work.  As Paul said yesterday, we live in a dark and evil world.  There is constant temptation to sin.  There are always opportunities to turn from righteousness and slip into selfishness, greed, lust, and other passions that dwell within.  We need help to navigate the evil in the world and within ourselves.

To this end, Paul gives us a great passage about where we can find the strength to live righteously.  Our belt, that which binds the armor together, is truth.  Our breastplate, that which protects our most vital areas, is righteousness.  Our shoes, which protect our ability to move and bring God’s Word to other places, is peace.  Our shield, which is our mobile defense against attack from any angle, is faith.  Our helmet, which protects our brain and decision making abilities, is the Word of God.  Our sword, which is both a parrying weapon and our means of attack, is also the Word of God.

Note, however, the arrangement of the source of our strength.  All but one of the pieces is a defensive piece of equipment.  The armor of God is first-and-foremost for our protection, not for assault and attack!  This should make sense.  God does not need us to fight His battles for Him.  He does invite us into His work, but He does not need us to assault His enemies.  God will do that Himself.  God will assault the strongholds of evil.  We merely need to stay strong, prepared to act in righteousness when God calls upon us.  Defense is primary to our role in God’s kingdom.

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Year 8, Day 146: Ephesians 5

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Ephesians 5 is largely a common sense chapter.  Paul gives us good advice for living.  He encourages us to behave in ways that build up the community around us.  He wants us to allow the light of God to shine through us.

Here are some of the things that Paul encourages us to do.  Rather than getting drunk, fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit and lift one another up with joy and praise.  Rather than make foolish decisions, wait upon and pursue the will of the Lord.  Don’t partner with empty actions.  Don’t allow our lusts to rule over us.  Speak words of encouragement instead of filthiness or crude jokes.  Husbands and wives should love each other.

These words simply make sense.  If we are going to be God’s people, we need to reflect God’s ways.  If we are going to reflect God’s ways, we need to live in truth.  We need to be building up the community around us.  We need to be observant about the needs of others around us.  We need to speak truthfully about the lives we see round us.

What Paul is really getting at here is something that we all know through our lived experience.  It’s one thing to talk a good talk.  It’s an entirely different thing to walk the walk.  Words sound hollow when we say them but live contrary to our words.  We come across as hypocrites when we do so.  Paul wants to make sure that our testimony is supported by, not hindered by, our actions.

There is another side to this as well.  Paul also wants to make sure that we remain in God’s will.  He wants to ensure that we receive the inheritance of God when we have finished with this life.  When we fill our life with sin, we risk abandoning God and forfeiting His grace.  Paul wants to make sure that we firmly hold on to what God has offered us through His own graciousness.  We live righteously not just for others, but to keep ourselves headed in a right direction.

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Year 8, Day 145: Ephesians 4

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As we turn to Ephesians 4, Paul’s talk about the salvation that comes from God turns to how we should be affected by it.  God does save us because He wants to be in relationship with us.  However, it is God’s desire that we change when we have His Spirit within us.  Dwelling with God should change us.

The first change is that we should be a people of forgiveness and compassion.  God was compassionate and forgave us; we should do the same.  We need to bear with one another’s faults.  We need to be a people who are truthful and honest with one another, not a people who speak soothing and hollow words.  We are to deal honestly with one another.  We should be a people who reflect the nature of Christ within!

Another change that should occur is within our demeaner.  We should be a people of peace.  We should be a people of patience.  We should be humble.  We should be gentle.  Our demeaner should be one who looks to the other instead of looking to ourselves.

Finally, there is a third effect.  We should be drawn into unity.  If there is one God and one Spirit, then we who have that Spirit within should be able to be united with one another.  How will we convince the world that there is one God if we are not able to be united as His people?

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Year 8, Day 144: Ephesians 3

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We continue to experience Paul’s greater theme for this book.  That theme is the salvation of the Gentiles.  God wants anyone to be able to come to Him, not just the Hebrew people.  This is what Paul continues to call the mystery of Christ.  We are saved by grace, not by our works or by our pedigree.

What’s neat about this chapter is that Paul demonstrates several effects of this reality.  One such effect is that Christ may dwell in our hearts.  We can know what it is like to dwell with Christ here and now.  We can have the strength of God’s Spirit within us.  This is a great effect of His mystery.

This gives us another effect.  Through His Spirit, we can grow in our wisdom and understanding.  We can live in a love that surpasses knowledge and understanding, reflecting the very love that God gives to us.  We can know the fullness of the measure of God.  These are all a part of the mystery of God.

There is external effect, too.   Through the mystery of Christ, God can establish His people.  Through His people, God can make His wisdom known to the world.  God can make His wisdom known to the heavens.  Through His mystery, God reveals Himself to all of creation around us.  God is working not just for our sake, but for all of creation.

In the end, this is a wonderful cycle of God’s grace.  He is gracious to us, inviting us to become the next level of demonstration of His grace to others.  God cares deeply about us, but He cares just as deeply about those who do not yet know Him and who need an opportunity to do so.  It comes around full circle to relationship with God.  That is indeed a mystery.  God desires to be in relationship with us.  He desires to dwell with us.

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Year 8, Day 143: Ephesians 2

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Today’s chapter is largely about one significant word: adoption.  The author of Ephesians reminds us that we are saved by grace.  It isn’t our works that saves us.  It isn’t our pedigree.  It is God’s grace that works through faith.  We are saved by grace in faith.

This leads us to the idea of adoption.  We cannot come to God on our own.  He comes to us and adopts us.  He comes to us because it is the only way it can be done.  He comes to us to bring us into His family.  He extends relationship.  He extends belonging.

The reality is that this is true of both Jews and Gentiles alike.  Could Abraham save himself?  Could Abraham bring himself to God?  Of course not!  God had to come to Abraham and offer covenant with Abraham.  Yes, Abraham was a man after God’s own heart.  Abraham, however, was still not righteous.  Abraham was a man who needed God to come to Him and offer him relationship.

Every human being who is in God’s family is there by adoption.  We all only come to God at His invitation.  We are all a people of grace.  That should be something that unites us instead of divides us.  It is Christ who is the foundation of the relationship that binds us to God and each other.

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Year 8, Day 142: Ephesians 1

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Today we start another equally short book authored by the apostle Paul.  Galatians was a very gritty book, teaching practical theology and making a defense for salvation by grace through Christ alone.  Ephesians is a far loftier book, speaking prolifically about Christ and our gift from God through Him.  Make no mistake, though.  Both books are firmly centered on the significance of Christ.

What has God given to us?  He has given His own Son to us.  Through that gift we gain adoption in His family.  We also gain forgiveness of our sins.  He gives us holiness.  He giver us holiness.  He bestows a new life upon us.

He does more than this, though.  He gives us an inheritance.  He allows us to look ahead in the time to come and anticipate life eternal with Him!  He allows us to be His praise!  He chooses us through whom He works so that people might see Him.  He bestows upon us an incredible future!

He gives still more to us.  How do we know that all of this is true?  We get the Holy Spirit.  God comes and dwells with us.  He seals us.  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our salvation.  With the Holy Spirit within us we can know that God’s promise is not only true, but ours.

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Year 8, Day 141: Galatians 5 & 6

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As Paul gets ready to end his letter, he continues to hit home with respect to truth.  The first thing that he tells us is that we should be careful to know from where our salvation comes.  If we are saved by grace through Christ, the we are not saved by the Law through our works.  If we think that we are saved through the Law, then Christ has done nothing for us.  Paul isn’t saying that the Law is useless in Christ; he is simply saying that we should be confident that our salvation comes from Him.  Christ saves us, the Law illustrates how much we need Him.

Paul then speaks about love. What does it look like when a person is living in Christ?  We live in the same kind of love with which Christ lived.  A person who follows Christ makes sacrifices for the other.  He forgives the other.  He is patient with the other.  He makes peace with the other.  He helps the other.  He celebrates with the other.  The person who follows Christ looks like Christ is living through him.

People who are living in Christ do not provoke one another.  People who are living in Christ are not envious.  We are not haughty.  We bear one another in love.

In the end, Paul gives us a great perspective.  Circumcision – or not being circumcised – is nothing.  What is something is being a new creation.  It doesn’t matter if we are wine or grape juice for communion people.  It doesn’t matter if we are worship on Sunday or Saturday people.  It doesn’t matter if we are King James or English Standard kind of people.  What matters is that we are a new creation.  What matters is that Christ lives in us and through us.  That is what matters.  That should be our focus.

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Year 8, Day 140: Galatians 4

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There are multiple levels that we can go with this lesson today.  I think the most readily insightful teaching is the one about law versus gospel.  Paul says it in multiple ways.  Law equates to bondage; gospel equates to freedom.  Law equates to immaturity; gospel equates to maturity.

As I was taking this all in, an analogy about human civilization hit me.  I’ve begun to notice that the more we legislate people’s behaviors, the less they seem to be able to behave in society.  I’m not talking about rebellion, I’m actually talking about decision-making capacity.  The more laws we make, the less we teach people to think.  The more laws we make, the more restricted we allow people’s brains to become.  They grow unaccustomed to making decisions because the law tells them exactly what they cannot do.  Since they become unaccustomed to making decisions, when an opportunity for a decision comes along, they are more apt to make the wrong one.  We don’t want a civilization where people are legislated into right choices because it’s the only choice available to them!  We want a civilization where people grow up to make right choices because they have been taught how to make good decisions and they want to make good decisions.  Righteous people come out of freedom, not legalism!

Here’s another analogy.  It can be amazing to watch someone who has only gone to a specific restaurant suddenly go to a new restaurant.  Take a child that has only ever been to McDonalds and only ever gotten the hamburger kids meal.  You pick them up and put them in a restaurant that has a good, yet normal, selection of food.  In most cases, even though the child could have anything they want, they will want the hamburger – and probably not even want lettuce, onion, or tomato on it.  They will want a bun, some meat, and few condiments.  That’s what legalism does to people!  That’s why Paul wants people to be free in Christ, not bound by the Law.

Another direction that I went as I read today’s verse is that Paul seems to be asking the Galatians why they reverted back to legalism.  Paul wants to know why someone would choose bondage when freedom is available!  Paul wants to know why someone would go into a wonderful restaurant professionally trained chef and voluntarily choose to order the plain burger.  Why do human being so often prefer to be bound than free?

The answer is usually easy to discern: simplicity.  Choice is difficult.  Making good decisions is a hard skill to master.  Learning how to choose what is best instead of what is fun or easy takes maturity.  That’s why legalism doesn’t lead to maturity!  It is far easier to get up and go through the motions every day than to get up and make meaningful decision after meaningful decision.  It’s easier to believe in a religion where there is only one right course of action than it is to believe in a God who offers you a plethora of right decisions and knows that the opportunity for making a plethora of bad decisions also exists!

Why did the Galatians go back to the Law?  Why does the child who only knows hamburgers order a hamburger at every restaurant?  It’s easier.  It’s not a matter of better.  It’s often not even a matter of happier.  It’s a matter of ease.  Human beings are creatures of ease, which is what makes us creatures of habit.

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Year 8, Day 139: Galatians 3

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Galatians 3 is a powerful chapter to read, especially in moments of judgmental thought.  We are heirs to the promise because of faith, not works.  It is not our perfection that appeals to God, but our heart.  It is not the amount of sin in our life that is paramount; it is whether we are after His own heart.  It is not our great sacrifice than God desires, but rather it is a broken and contrite heart.

When I see people capable of being condemned, I need to remember that I cannot know their heart.  I need to remember that God looked past my condemnation to give me grace.  He doesn’t want me to live under the burden of my condemnation.  He does want me to recognize my sin, but He wants me to live under His righteousness and His grace.

There’s a deeper meaning to the consequences of this passage.  So often we like those who are like us.  Perhaps we only love those who act like we do.  But that’s not what God is teaching us through Paul’s words.  We are heirs by our faith, not our works.  Our spiritual family is not the people who look like us or act like us.  Our spiritual family is made up of all the people who have equally flawed lives as us but whose hearts are inclined towards the same God.  Being God’s heir is an internal state, not an eternal state.

Don’t get me wrong.  Faith without works is dead.  We should see evidence of faith around us.  But we will not see perfection.  We shouldn’t even expect it!  What we see will be people trying to put forth the faith within them.  We will see success; we will see failure.  We will be able to celebrate; we will need to forgive.  The neat part of this is that in this understand we see the mind of God.  We imitate Him.

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Year 8, Day 138: Galatians 2

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Paul continues to speak to us about his own life.  He has gone before the disciples; they didn’t make him do anything other than what Christ ahs entrusted him to do.  Paul has even challenged Peter’s authority in making people live a certain way because Peter himself doesn’t always follow all of the rules.  Paul’s own ministry speaks to his own love of God and his desire for obedience.  Paul’s point is that he is living the life he preaches.

What is the life he preaches?  Paul is living a life that salvation comes only through Christ.  It isn’t about what I eat.  It isn’t about putting in the right hours.  It isn’t about being seen doing the right things by the right people.  It isn’t about rote repetition of meaningless behaviors.  It is about Christ, His love for us, and His death on the cross.  We are saved by His grace, not by any circumstance of our own life.

What does this reality look like in our life?  Paul tells us matter-of-factly.  We have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.  It’s that simple, really.  Christ died for us so that we can live in relationship with God.  If we truly believe that, why would we spend time pursuing our own selfish desires any longer?

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Year 8, Day 137: Galatians 1

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As Paul writes this letter to the Galatians, we are reminded of several crucial truths.  First, and most importantly, there is no other gospel.  The gospel that we have received is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Salvation comes through Him.  God sent His Son to make a way back to relationship with Him because there is no other way.  We can’t do it ourselves.  There is but one way to the Father.  That way is through the Son.

We also learn a few other truths.  Human beings like to turn to other truths.  We want to turn to a gospel that is easier to follow.  We want to preach a works-based salvation because it gives us permission to judge.  We want to preach a universal salvation because it gives us permission to sin freely and follow the lusts of our hearts.  We want to preach salvation through our social class because it allows us to think that human popularity equates to divine approval.  We want to preach a salvation through our bank account because it gives us permission to think that the pursuit of our financial dreams equates to God’s approval of our life.  We want all kinds of other gospels.

How often do we really want the gospel that Paul received from Christ?  Do we want to follow a leader who promotes servant-leadership and self-sacrifice?  Do we want to follow a leader who takes a popular up-and-coming Jewish leader in Paul and turns him into an evangelist who finds an incredible amount of worldly rejection everywhere he goes?

We may not always want to choose it, but there is no other gospel. If we want relationship with God, we do it His way.  We follow a servant leader.  We deny ourselves.  We spend ourselves.  We go through this life seeking His will over our own.

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Year 8, Day 136: Job 42

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I really love the end of the book of Job.  It is one of my favorite moments of forgiveness recorded in the Bible.  Some of my other moments are the washing of Jesus’ feet and the man healed from the possession of a legion of demons.  Why do I love the book of Job’s ending so much?  It’s simple.  The right thing happens.

First of all, look at Job.  Job gets the message.  He was righteous.  He spoke righteous words.  God affirms how Job spoke, even!  However, Job also is not innocent.  He hears the critique and accepts the rebuke.  He humbles himself before God.  That’s what should happen when people who do wrong are corrected.  Job is vindicated; but, he accepts it humbly.

Second, I love that Job’s friends are rebuked.  Actually, to be correct, I love how the rebuking of Job’s friends is handled.  God chastises them and affirms that they are wrong. He specifically says that they spoke poorly on His behalf.  God doesn’t appreciate when we say the wrong thing, call it truth, and attribute it to Him.  God is not the God of things that sound right or things that feel true.  God is the God of truth.  When we attribute something to God, it should be truth, not just logical.

Perhaps even more importantly, I love that God tells them to sacrifice and then hope that He will listen to Job’s prayer.  It’s a very not-so-subtle acknowledgement that God doesn’t particularly want to consider their own prayers.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that God would accept and listen to their genuine prayer.  There’s a difference between sending a message and actually doing something.  God is righteous, He hears a righteous prayer.  But God would rather hear Job’s prayer.  I love that thought.

Lastly, God gives us a promise through action.  God reminds us that He will make things right in the end. Job’s wealth is restored.  His family gathers around him once more.  His public reputation is reinstated.  This doesn’t mean that God will always do it in our lifetime.  But just as God raised Jesus from the dead, God will raise us into eternal life and make it right in the end.  In the end, we will live with Him in life and peace eternal.

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Year 8, Day 135: Job 41

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God has one last major criticism for Job. Job can’t explain creation; he wasn’t there.  Job can’t also subdue creation; he isn’t powerful enough.  In that light, Job can’t exactly do a whole lot besides experience creation.  He can’t wrestle Leviathan.  He can’t pull it out of its lair.  He can’t make it sign to him.  He can’t divide it among the merchants.  He can’t do much.

I’m not trying to pick on Job.  If you want to be honest, I can’t do that, either.  I’m no better than Job.  When I try to stand up against the things of this world, I show more about my weaknesses than about my strength.  I show my faults far more than I show my expertise.

This is a great thing to learn about humanity.  We think we are so strong.  Communal, we have done great things.  Look at our cities.  Look at our medicine.  Look at our transportation. Look at our great works of literature and art.  We can be a great people.  However, we aren’t perfect.  One good earthquake and it can take down a city.  Drop in a large enough meteor and you can cause some serious damage.  Put in a drought and life becomes quite inconvenient.  Collectively, we are powerful beings.  But we are not as grand as we think.

That’s God’s point to Job.  We tend to have bigger opinions of ourselves then we truly deserve.  We can do great things.  We can make beautiful objects.  But we’re nowhere near eternal or omnipotent.  We have no right to stand before God and hold Him accountable.  He is our redeemer and He will save.  That is His promise to us.  That doesn’t mean that we will always live a perfect life or an easy life.  Yet, God is always with us.

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Year 8, Day 134: Job 40

Theological Commentary: Click Here

God gives one last word to Job as we begin this chapter.  Shall someone who knows fault challenge God, who doesn’t?  That puts us all pretty much in place.  As Jesus says, let the one who is without sin throw the first stone.  Being angry – even being angry with God – is a natural human instinct.  However, it’s still wrong.  We have no place to find fault with God.  We have no reason to contend with Him.

I continue to love how Job handles himself.  After hearing from God, he has a short reply.  After receiving a direct challenge from God, he knows enough to just stop talking.  This is the sum of Job’s ultimate argument: “I’m sorry, God.  You’re right.  I’m shutting up, now.”  I love that.  How many times when I am in the wrong would I not be better served by saying, “Wow, I am wrong.  I’m shutting up, now.”

For the rest of the chapter, God reminds Job and Job’s friends about life.  God reminds Job of two things.  First, Job should be humble because one of the largest and most powerful land animals that cannot be tamed, the behemoth, gets all of his strength by eating grass.  This is a display of God’s power.  God can make something that gets all of its nutrients from grass strong and respectable.  How much more can God do with human beings who have a brain with which we can think and plan!

Second, God reminds Job what he should be doing with his time.  Instead of wondering where God is in the midst of Job’s suffering, Job should have been going about God’s will.  Job should have been standing up for the oppressed.  He should have been making sure the proud were humbled.  He should have been resisting the wicked.  This is an incredible reminder.  How often do we allow our worries, concerns, and troubles to distract us from being obedient to the calling that God has for us?

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Year 8, Day 133: Job 39

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In case you thought that God was done with Job, He’s not.  This whole chapter is a continuation of God’s discourse against Job.  One point to understand is that should we lose our humility and become brazen against God, we need to be big enough to take it.  God is big enough to listen to my wrongly stated rebuke and then forgive me when I repent.  I need to be big enough to understand that with forgiveness comes teaching so that I can grow and understand and become humble again.  That’s part of what makes Job great in this story.  He does become brazen, but he also accepts the rebuke and learns from it.

God continues.  Yesterday, God was reminding Job all about the big processes of nature about which Job is essentially clueless: creation, sunrise, rain, snowfall, drought, etc.  These are all things that Job cannot control, much less explain.  Today, though, God takes a different tack – and I love it.  Today God switches to the nature around him that Job can control.  God talks about things like horses and eagles and ostriches.  We all know that man is to have dominion over the earth, right?

For me, the crux of this whole chapter is in the question that God asks Job in Job 39:12.  Do you have faith that the wild ox will return to you and serve you?  You see, that’s one of the main differences between God and human beings.  We get what we want by force.  How do we domesticate animals?  We stick them in pens so they cannot go where they choose.  How do we train animals?  We deprive them of all experience except the ones that we want them to have so that they respond the way we want them to respond.  Some animals are more happily domesticated than others.  We can train dogs pretty easily.  Horses are not too badly trained.  Oxen are a little more difficult.  Cats are sometimes downright stubborn.  Many wild animals like snakes and fish are downright impossible.

Human beings dominate the earth by sheer force of will.  We dominate the land around us – even the lesser people – by giving them no other choice.  The control that we have isn’t because we really have the power; we exert control by limiting others!

That’s not how God works at all.  God exerts control because He knows the nature of things.  Things want to serve God.  The wild ox in the example that I am lifting up will return to God not because it has no other choice but because it knows God and it wants to.  That’s the difference between God and us.  We want to be in control, so we exert our will.  God is in control, so He can give freedom.

What an incredible analogy for salvation, by the way.  Why is it that we cannot save ourselves?  We cannot save ourselves because we do not really have the power.  The harder we try to save ourselves, the more we miss the mark because we are exerting our own will.  God offers us salvation, but He does it by giving us freedom.

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Year 8, Day 132: Job 38

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter we get our second glimpse of God in this book.  Remember what the first glimpse was all about.  The first glimpse was God lifting up Satan as an example of a righteous paragon.  We saw God tell Satan about Job, confident that Job’s faith would endure to the end, even in the midst of persecution.  Before we move on to the perspective of God that we see in this chapter, it’s important to point something out.  God was right.  Job remained faithful.  Job is still in relationship with God.  That is the greater context that allows this chapter and the chapters that follow to happen at all.  God was right, Job is still faithful.

That being said, we do get an opportunity to see a different side of God in this chapter.  This side is often seen as wrathful and a righteous judge.  Those perspectives aren’t wrong.  This chapter is all about putting Job in his place.  God takes the opportunity here to demonstrate why He is God and why Job is not.  While Job has been faithful, he has not been without mistakes.  He has questioned God’s motives.  He has accused God of being far away and not listening.  While Job is still in relationship with God, Job has erred.  It’s time for God to point out those errors.

That’s what I love about this chapter.  When the side of God that is the righteous judge steps up, God pulls no punches.  Can Job explain the origin of light?  Can job hold back the water?  Can Job explain exactly how the earth was formed and exactly what it contains?  Can Job command the morning to happen?  The reality is that Job – and all of us – pale in comparison to God.  We think we are so smart, but we are really so little.  We understand only those things that we realize we should understand.  To put it another way, we don’t know what we don’t know.

Human beings are marvelous things, but we are limited.  We don’t understand how much we don’t know and can’t explain!  That’s why the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.  Every good day should start with a healthy reminder of our human limitations.  It keeps us humble.  That’s God’s point to Job.  While Job is in relationship with God, he has lost his humbleness.  Job has gotten brazen and God knows that it is time to put Job in his place and put his brazenness in check.

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Year 8, Day 131: Job 37

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I will give Elihu some credit today.  I think that he does will to focus upon the majesty of God.  In truth, I think that most of the mistakes made in this book of the Bible were made when people quit focusing on the majesty of God and instead started to focus on their own burden.  When we focus on God, our perspective is assured.

What do we know about God’s majesty?  God commands the snow to fall, and it is beautiful!  God commands the rain to fall and it is nourishing to the earth.  God commands the light to shine and we feel its warmth and are energized by the light.  God’s display of His grace and His providence are utterly amazing.

Perhaps more importantly, when we ponder the amazing nature of His love we set ourselves up for humbleness.  When I think about how God makes it rain, I realize that I can’t do that.  I can understand how rain happens.  I can talk about dew points, condensation, temperature variations in air, and how these things affect relative humidity.  But I can’t make it rain.  In fact, I can’t even explain why it rains nourishing rain on our planet, yet many other planets have harmful acid rains.  I can’t fathom how it came to be that we live on a planet with all of God’s provision as we need it!

Elihu does well to focus Job and his friends on God.  It’s Elihu’s last words, and he chooses wisely.  I know I would be better off if I spent more time focusing on the majesty of God.

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Year 8, Day 130: Job 36

Theological Commentary: Click Here

For the most part, I think Elihu gets much right in this passage.  Perhaps the greatest point is that we need to extol God’s greatness more.  We need to make sure that we do not forget to extol God’s greatness.  God is great, all the time.  God is abundantly great.  God’s greatness is ever-present!

Who can explain God’s wisdom?  Who can fathom His hand at work? Who can anticipate the full coming of His grace?  Who among us are not amazed at the abundance of His love?  We need to extol this greatness.

I also think that there is also a hint of truth in what Elihu says about wicked people dying early in life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to talk about the opposite in the next paragraph.  The hint of truth, however, is that we often do reap what we sew.  When we make bad choices, there are consequences.  If we make bad enough choices, we might even snuff our life out before our time.  He does allow people to be delivered into the consequences of their own choices.

That being said, it’s also time to lift up the old argument against this line of thinking.  While people do suffer the consequences of their actions, it is not fair to say that all wicked people die young and all righteous people live to an old age.  We cannot assume those with an unfortunate life story are evil and those who live in luxury are righteous.  It simply is a fair conclusion to reach and it is a worse conclusion to teach to others!

God’s grace falls upon the evil and the righteous.  God’s generosity is bestowed upon all to the measure of Gods choosing.  That is something for which we should praise God.

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Year 8, Day 129: Job 35

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter, Elihu condemns another of Job’s approaches.  Elihu condemns Job’s accusations of God refusing to hear him.  I do have to stop and give Elihu some credit here.  I do agree with Elihu in premise.  God does hear us.  God is aware of our turmoil.  God is aware of our persecution.  Who are we to think that God doesn’t hear or care?  As Elihu says, that is human pride at work.

However, Elihu isn’t without his own flaws in his argument.  First of all, Elihu is once again making the argument that God isn’t listening because Job isn’t righteous.  We continue to hear the tried and true humanistic reasoning.  We know the problem.  God isn’t punishing Job; God is teaching about faith.

I will give Elihu a little more credit, though.  One of the arguments that he makes does have a little merit.  I think we could all learn to take his suggestions in Job 35:10-11.  We should remember that God is the ultimate source of truth and teaching.  We could stand to remember a little more often about the how God is the source of wisdom.  Who among us couldn’t stand to remember that God is our maker?

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Year 8, Day 128: Job 34

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Elihu is emboldened in this passage.  However, he is young.  Elihu returns to the tried and tried – and still wrong – approach that Job is wrong.  Job can’t be righteous because calamity has befallen him.  Job can’t be righteous because God doesn’t do an unjust act.  Elihu assumes that Job’s circumstances are proof of his guilt.

Unfortunately, what Elihu is showing us is that sometimes we talk to much and don’t listen enough.  Elihu should have listened to his own words!  Only two chapters ago Elihu was onto something.  Elihu opened up the possibility that there was something else going on that nobody had considered.  How quickly has Elihu forgotten his own advice and returned to human logic!

The reality is that God hasn’t punished Job.  This isn’t a trial at all.  God is proving how faithful Job will be, even when faced with the worst consequence possible short of death.  Job is a case study, not a criminal.

What a powerful reminder.  How often do we think that when life is going well that it is proof of our proximity to God?  How often do we think that when our life goes poorly it is proof of God’s distance from us?  How much better would it be to remember that God is always ear to us and to have an eternal focus!

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