Year 6, Day 236: 1 John 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

1 John 2 places the initial focus upon Jesus Christ as our redeemer.  Of course, He is.  He came and died so that we might be able to know God and relationship with the Father.  That much is simply understood through the witness of God’s Word.

However, look at the natural conclusion to this passage.  Wat is it that John writes to us immediately after speaking about Christ as our redeemer?  How do we know that we have received Christ?  We obey His commandments.  If we say that we know Christ but do not keep His commandments, we are a liar.  It’s there.  It’s black and white.  If we are in Christ, we will obey.

This is why at the end of the passage we hear John advocate abiding in Christ.  When we are abiding in Him, we are listening to Him.  We are resting in His care.  We are communing with Him.  When we abide in Christ, obedience should be second nature.

What’s interesting is the example that John gives to us about what obedience looks like.  When John speaks about applied obedience, he talks about how we feel in our heart with respect towards our brothers and sisters.  If we are truly in Christ and obedient to Him, we should not find ourselves at odds with other people who are in Christ.  Hatred and anger has no place in the heart of the person who is obedient to Christ.  I don’t know about you, but I find that an incredibly challenging proposal.

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Year 6, Day 235: 1 John 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

It might seem easy to talk about character in this chapter.  In a sense, it is.  After all, God is light.  In Him there is no darkness.  God is wholly good.  That’s really simple to understand.

While that is must certainly true and absolutely important, I want to go a little deeper than that in this blog post.  Let’s look at us.  John tells us that when we say we do not sin we lie.  He says that when we claim to walk with God yet still walk in darkness, we lie.  In fact, not only do we lie, we deceive ourselves!  We convince ourselves of the lie.

So what does character look like for us if God’s character is wholly good?  It is really pretty simple.  When we follow His ways, we walk in the light and demonstrate our God-given character.  However, when we confess our sins, we acknowledge the truth about ourselves and defeat the lie.  When we confess our sins, we break the hold that our deception has over us.  When we confess our sins, God’s forgiving character is bestowed upon us and we also demonstrate our character to Him in response.

Good character is not just about perfection.  God’s good character is perfect, but He is the only such being.  Good character is about trying to do the right thing and acknowledging the truth when we mess it up.

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Year 6, Day 234: Jonah 3-4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Bear Fruit

• Bear Fruit: We bear fruit after we grow.  Bearing fruit is ultimately the goal of abiding and the goal of being called into the Kingdom of God.  However, while bearing fruit is our calling, it is not the end.  We bear fruit so that we can then prune, abide, grow, and bear more fruit in another season.  Bearing fruit is not the end, but rather only a portion of the whole rhythm of life into which God has called us.

Jonah is a sad story, and it is a story with which I usually wrestle.  I wrestle with it because if I am honest, I see much of my humanity within Jonah.  When I look into this story, I see that I could so easily be Jonah if I am not careful.

To see what I mean, let’s look at what happens.  After being swallowed by the fish, Jonah heads to Nineveh.  He does it rather grudgingly because he doesn’t want the Ninevites to find salvation.  He wants them judged.  He wants them to receive what he believes they deserve.  He wants the errors of their ways to come back and haunt them.

Is that feeling really very far from any of us?  I know I feel that.  I’m sure that I feel that way every time a car sails past me on the highway, clearly breaking the speed limit.  I feel that way every time I hear about some corrupt politician clearly gaining popularity in spite of their lack of ethics and morality.  I feel that way every time I see someone using someone else unfairly.

To be honest, I’m not sure that such a feeling is inherently bad.  Where it turns bad is when I allow those feelings to cloud my understanding of bearing fruit.  Look again at Jonah.  He proclaims God’s message and the people actually believe!  They repent!  But Jonah isn’t happy about it.  He doesn’t want them to find salvation at all.  This is where it goes wrong.  It’s not wrong to want sin to meet conviction.  It’s wrong when we ever become unsatisfied with repentance.

We are called to bear fruit.  What greater fruit it there than people repenting and finding God?  We should always find joy in that fruit.  When we don’t find joy in grace and repentance, we are focused on bearing the wrong fruit.

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Year 6, Day 233: Jonah 1-2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

Do you remember the parable that Jesus gives to us in Matthew 21:28-32?  In that parable we have two sons.  One who seems agreeable but is really disobedient and one that seems disagreeable but who is obedient.  Keep this parable in mind as we study Jonah.

God comes to Jonah.  He tells him that He has a message that needs to be delivered to Nineveh.  Jonah receives the message.  He packs his things and hits the road.  From all outward appearances, Jonah is the dutiful servant of the Lord.

However, Jonah turns a corner and gets on a ship instead.  If you’ve ever seen a map that has Jerusalem and Nineveh upon it, you realize pretty quickly that there isn’t any need to board a boat at all.  Jonah has no intention of obeying.  He’s like that son in Jesus’ parable who says, “Yes, dad.  I’ll go and work.”  But he never does.

I’m not doubting Jonah’s faith.  I’m not doubting Jonah’s belief that God is a great God.  Do you hear his prayer when he is in the rather large fish?  Jonah clearly has respect with God.  From Jonah’s perspective, he values his relationship with God.  But there is no obedience.  His faith is completely one-sided.  There is belief, but there is no obedience.  That’s what is wrong with Jonah.  That’s why he makes the mistake he does.

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Year 6, Day 232: Obadiah

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

Obadiah is a book written against the people of Edom.  Remember that there is a connection between the people of Edom and the Hebrew people.  The people of Edom are Esau’s descendants.  That means that while they may not be from Jacob, they are certainly from Abraham.  They are kin to the Hebrew people.

Obadiah writes because he sees Jerusalem in ruins.  They have been conquered by Babylon.  That was at God’s hand, so that is not what Obadiah is speaking against.  When Obadiah looks to a ruined Jerusalem and the surrounding land, he sees the Edomites coming in and taking advantage of their downfall.  They are taking over the land.  They are rounding up escaped Hebrew people and selling them as slaves to other nations.  They see the downfall of the Hebrew people as a means to gain.

Generically speaking, that is what the book of Obadiah is all about.  Our human appetite thirsts for opportunities to take advantage of the downfall of other people.  This is why we have sayings like “top dog” and “kick them while they are down.”  Human appetite loves the easy victory.  We love to increase our wealth and standing, and if possible we will take the easiest route.

This is horrible.  There is nothing wrong with taking the easy route, mind you.  There is no point in making things more difficult than they need to be.  However, we should not consider taking advantage of people as the easy way.  Easy victories over people who are in no position to do anything about it is not a victory, it is bullying.  It’s not good business, it is indecent human behavior.  We should have an appetite for honest gain through honest work, not biggest gain by taking advantage of other people and their circumstances.  That is what God finds absolutely deplorable in this passage.

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Year 6, Day 231: Amos 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

When I think about the concept of king, I personally think about the word omnipotence.  This last chapter epitomizes this in my opinion.  Here we see God in no less than three different forms.

First, we see God as judge.  He knows the hearts of the people and how far they have fallen away from Him.  He knows their sin.  He doesn’t need to accept the sacrifices that are not made in earnest.  He is capable of searching out those who run away from Him and who try to hide.  There is none in better position than God in all His righteousness to sit as judge over us: king in every way.

Then, we are reminded about who God is.  He is the creator.  When He touches the earth, it melts.  He calls for the rain and causes it to fall upon the earth.  He causes the Nile to rise and flood and then diminish.  He deserves to be thought of as king because He is the creator.

Finally, we see God as a loving God.  He is a king who does not let judgment and wrath have the final word.  He wants to redeem us.  He wants to reinstate the relationship that we break.  He wants to see us come back into His grace and His will.  He deserves to be king because when all is said and done, He will be the one remaining to love us at the end of judgment.

What does it mean to be king?  A king has the power to judge and rule.  He has the power to create and rule.  But a true king shows the compassion to love and rule.

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Year 6, Day 230: Amos 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

When we read through Amos 8, we hear many complaints of the Lord.  The people can’t wait for the holy days to be over so they can get back to their regular life where their interests lie.  They trample the needy.  They walk all over the poor.  In fact, they are even willing to buy the poor like slaves.

Do you hear what God’s grievance truly is?  The appetite of the people is interfering with a lifestyle that is congruent to God’s ways.  The appetite of the people is causing them to look upon fellow human beings as a means to profit rather than as a means to express grace and love.  The appetite of the people for economic gain is pulling the people away from the Lord in general.

Look down towards the end of the chapter.  Do you hear the natural conclusion to human appetite?  When we hunger and thirst for things that are not of the Lord – especially when we do it as a nation – God will cause a spiritual famine to come among us.  I don’t think that it is a coincidence that our hunger for things that are not of God causes a famine of spiritual proportion.

Of course, I can’t help but wonder if the famine is really God’s doing or God’s allowing us to reach the natural conclusion to our actions.  After all, if only a very small percent of a population cares about God and His ways, where would the spirituality come from?  Where would the examples be?  Where would God draw out His prophets and teachers and evangelists?  Our earthly appetite results in a spiritual famine of our own making – a famine God presents to us as the consequence of our choices.

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Year 6, Day 229: Amos 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Prophet

• Prophet: A prophet is one of the fivefold ministry categories that is used throughout the Bible and especially lifted up in Ephesians 4:11. The prophet is primarily concerned with whether or not the people are hearing the voice of God.  The prophet is also concerned about whether or not the people are responding to God’s voice.

There is one reason above all other reasons for which I love the prophets of Israel: they are obedient to God, not interested in the respect of the people around them.  Look at Amos in this chapter.  Amos gets done telling us about how God showed him planned punishment after planned punishment.  Again and again Amos asked God to relent and God relents.  Amos desires to uphold the people of God in His sight.  That’s what God calls the prophets to do.  They are to uphold the people of God.

However, immediately after upholding the people in the presence of God, do you hear the story that Amos relates?  Amaziah, a priest under the service of the king, comes to him and tells him to go away.  He tells him that his message isn’t welcome here.  How is that for gratitude?

Amos lives up to His calling.  He is a prophet through and through.  Whether the people love him and respect him is irrelevant.  What matters is that he does what God asks him to do.  He lifts up the people in God’s sight.  He proclaims God’s message knowing that it will bring rejection, criticism, and even all out hatred.  But there is Amos, willing to be hated for the sake of his calling.

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Year 6, Day 228: Amos 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

What a humbling chapter!  Look at the things that Amos decries in this passage.  Amos decries the people who live in lavish luxury.  He raises a cry against those who do not see an issue with the downfall of the Hebrew people.  He cautions those who spend their time doing idle and unimportant things.

Why is this chapter humbling?  When Amos looks around at his own people, he sees a people who are falling into disrepair and who don’t really seem to care about it.  He sees a people who are falling away from God and who are too interested in the things of their own life to care.  He sees a nation that no longer cares about justice and righteousness and instead cares about their own luxuries.  Nations in positions like these are not going to earn the favor of the Lord.  People who are following these rhythms in life are not going to have the favor of the Lord.

What does Amos say that God abhors in verse 8?  He abhors their pride.  He hates their strongholds because it allows them to rely on their own failing power rather than His infinite power.  God knows what happens when our priorities shift.  We become proud.  We become focus on our own pleasure rather than our fellow man and our community around us.  He knows that as we focus on ourselves, we are less able to be His representatives to the world around us.

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Year 6, Day 227: Amos 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

I don’t think that there is any doubt among believers that God is king.  After all, He created the world.  Why shouldn’t He be king over it?

However, just because He is king – even when all of His people acknowledge that He is king – doesn’t mean that His people live as though He is king.  We rebel.  We follow our own desires.  Sometimes we follow ourselves instead of the king because we think our way is better.  Sometimes we do our own think out of sheer rebellion.  As King, God knows this.  He understands that just because He clearly is king doesn’t mean we will live like it.

Look as Amos’ complaint here in this chapter.  How many times does Amos tell the people to return to the Lord to live?  Amos knows that life is found in the king, our Creator!  But this also implies that the people have wandered away.  They need to come back!

Yet there is a twist on this as we come to the end of the chapter.  Although Amos tells the people that if they turn and seek the Lord then they will live, he also reminds the people that the Day of the Lord will be dark.  The Day of the Lord will be a day of judgment. He knows that they will not turn.  Therefore, a king who desires to love us will turn away when we offer up meaningless sacrifices.  He will turn aside when we offer up our praise but don’t live out His ways in life by being concerned for the poor and orphaned.

He is a king who can offer us life.  He is a king who can set us right when we have gone astray.  But He is also a king who will judge us when we do not turn back to Him.  He is a King who can see through our empty offerings and instead hold us accountable for what is truly in our hearts.

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Year 6, Day 226: Amos 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

When we read through this chapter in Amos, we get a strong sense of love.  Yes, there is a heavy hand of vengeance and judgment.  But the overarching phrase that returns is, “Yet, you did not return to me.”  God isn’t primarily concerned about making sure that their sins are punished.  God is concerned that the relationship is broken.

This is a dynamic that I believe is often lost when we talk about God.  It is so easy to talk about God as an all-powerful being who can mete out judgment and wrath and punish us for our inability to live in ways fitting for our created purpose.  While God certainly is powerful enough to step into that role, it is not the role that God desires to play.  God desires to be in a role of relationship rather than judge.

This leads us to the idea of calling.  We are called to be in relationship with God and with each other.  We are called to live according to our created purpose.

When we disobey, we are called to listen to God’s correction and return to Him.

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Year 6, Day 225: Amos 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

Amos is a prophet before the captivity.  He is a prophet who brings warnings of approaching judgment.  His message is often stern and strict and dark.

In this chapter it is no different.  Amos begins the chapter with a reminder that God is the one who is in charge.  But even more importantly, the Hebrew people are special to God.  He has known no other people like the Hebrew people.  They are special to Him.  However, it also means that the wounds that the Hebrew people open up are deeper when they disobey Him.

So what is Amos’ point in this chapter.  God is King.  God is in control.  But when we disobey Him, it is God who brings the judgment.  It is God who brings the snare.  It is God who finds us punished.  When we disobey the King, He has the power to bring us under correction in the hope that we will come back to Him.

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Year 6, Day 224: Amos 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Amos 2 gives us another interesting perspective into the character of humanity.  Look at all of the various things that human beings are accused of doing in this chapter.  As a fair warning, it isn’t pretty.

First of all, we hear about the Moabites.  What are they guilty of?  Well, we are not entirely sure.  We know that they “burned the bones of the king of Edom.”  But what exactly does this mean?  It could be that they are disrespecting the dead.  It could be that they are guilty of grave robbing.  In any case, the people of Moab are guilty of living a life that is willing to take advantage of the defenseless.  When there is no respect for the dead, there is no respect for the helpless, either.

Then we get to the Hebrew people.  What is Judah guilty of?  Judah is guilty not valuing their relationship with the Lord.  They lie.  They seek their own gain.  They trade the truth of God for their own passion.

Then we hit the people of Israel, the northern kingdom.  What is their great sin?  According to Amos, their sin is that they are selling the righteous and the needy.  In other words, they’ve become slavers.  They are willing to look upon other human beings as a means to an economic end.  They no longer see each other as human beings deserving of love; instead they see each other as an object from economic advantage.

What does all of this say about the human character?  We are inherently greedy.  We are willing to use one another.  We are willing to take advantage of those who cannot stop us from doing so.  We are willing to follow the whims of our passion regardless of whether or not it’s right or wrong.  Why do we need God?  I think that list of character traits says it all.

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Year 6, Day 223: Amos 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Out

• Out: This is the focus of our mission.  These are the people to whom God has called us to go.  These are the people into whom we are focused on attempting to speak God’s truth.

Amos gives us a great perspective, especially among the Minor Prophets.  The reason that I say this is because the Minor Prophets are all short books.  As such, they typically focus on the Hebrew people as the recipients of their message.  But this isn’t true with Amos.  Amos’ Out isn’t the Hebrew people.  Amos’ Out – the focus of his mission – are the nations around the Hebrew people.

Of course, we must realize that especially in the beginning of this book the message is dark, gloomy, and full of judgment.  It is fairly hard to see this as out, because when we think about ministry we often think about benefits that we bring into the lives of others.  When most of us think of out, we think about feeding people, clothing them, listening to them, giving them godly advice, helping with their children, and things like that. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Giving correction is helping someone.  Where would any of us actually be if we did not get correction from time to time?  Giving a warning is actually helping people!  Where would any of us be if we didn’t receive warnings about our actions and potential dangers?

That’s what Amos is doing here.  Amos is turning his eyes past the limits of the Hebrew people and into the nations around him.  He is offering up cautionary warnings.  He is revealing impending judgment before it comes so that they can prepare.  When Amos looks to the people to whom God is calling him, he sees the Gentiles around him as much as the Hebrew people themselves.

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Year 6, Day 222: 2 Peter 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

I feel like this is a bit of an usual topic for today’s verse.  After all, look at the focus for the first half of this chapter.  Peter is talking about people who scoff and mock God.  Peter talks about people who fall away from the faith because they don’t think Christ is coming after all.

To be honest, it has been 2,000 years since He died.  It has been a long while.  But that really shouldn’t surprise us, should it?  After all, it was roughly a few thousand years before Abraham and Jesus.  God gave the promise of salvation roughly a few thousand years before He revealed His plan.  Should it really surprise us that He is going to take a few thousand years to allow His Gospel to spread, allow people to come to Him, and allow relationship to be restored before returning and ushering in judgment?

So, why do I focus on King today?  Ultimately, I think the ability to keep the faith rests in our ability to remember that God is king and then live like it.  After all, if we believe, confess, and live as though God is indeed king, why would we even doubt that He is coming back?  Why would the amount of time matter if we genuinely see God as king?  His timing is what matters.  His control is what matters.  My doubt is nothing when He is king.

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Year 6, Day 221: 2 Peter 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

When I read this chapter in 2 Peter, I can’t help but think about challenge.  Truthfully, I can’t help but think about pitfalls, which causes me to think about challenge.  Navigating the world is a bit of a precarious thing.  There are plenty of places where we can get it wrong if we aren’t careful.

The first place that we can get it wrong is with the people around us.  If we are not careful, we can fall in the path of false teachers.  How do we know them?  They are sensual, all about what feels good or feels right.  They are greedy, focused on personal gain and exploitation.

The second place that we can fall is in our own personal ego.  We boast about ourselves.  We promise freedom but we cannot deliver.  We start by following Christ but get so focused on ourselves that we no longer find ourselves following Him.

How can we resist the temptation to fall?  We surely don’t do it on our own strength!  We do it by remembering that it is God who spares us.  It is God who rescues us.  It is God who can bring us out of the time of trial.  It is God who can affirm our character.

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Year 6, Day 220: 2 Peter 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

As Peter opens this letter, we can hear a large exhortation to have a good character.  I’d like to start near the end of this letter, though, because I think that it is there that we find the root of Peter’s call for character.  It is in this chapter that we hear Peter’s reminder of the Transfiguration.  “This is my Son; with whom I am well pleased.”  In other words, the Father approved of the character of the Son.  We should imitate Him.

Because Peter heard this first hand, he can be confident in his assertion.  Because he heard this first hand, he can be confident that the character that he saw in Jesus is the goal for which we should strive.  If we wish to please God, we will need our character to be modeled after the character of Christ.

What does the character of Christ look like?  It is faith supplemented with virtue.  It is knowledge supporting the faith and virtue.  It is self-control.  It is steadfastness.  It is godliness, which of course leads us to love.

This is the character of Christ.  This is the character that allowed Him to obediently sacrifice His life for our sake.  This is what allowed Him to look evil intentions in the face and come out victorious with His honor intact.  This is the character that we should boldly proclaim with our lives and with our words.

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Year 6, Day 219: 1 Peter 4-5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

As we might expect from a book that has had such a great emphasis on obedience, we end with two strong chapters on character.  When I say strong chapters, I also inherently mean challenging chapters.  There are many things in these chapters that sound great.  Ye each thing of greatness is also a thing of challenge and difficulty to accomplish.

For example, Peter encourages us to put aside the time in our life where we are thinking about ourselves and simply responding to our emotions.  He tells us to be a people whose character is about self-control and sober-minded thinking.  We are to show love often, which is easier said than done.  We are to be hospitable without grumbling.  We are to suffer without being ashamed.  We are to lead through the willingness of invitation instead of compulsion.  We are to be humble.

Each of those things are great things.  Each item in the list above are things that if we had a mentor in life we would want the mentor to possess.  However, we know the difficulty faced by always remembering to be in control, showing love, being hospitable, or not grumbling.  The character traits that Peter lists here are excellent traits.  But they are not traits that come naturally or easily within us.

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Year 6, Day 218: 1 Peter 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

I have to confess that I really wanted to write on obedience again today.  Peter really hits the same note that he has hit all along in his writing within this chapter.  However, I wanted to force myself to come at it from a slightly different perspective.  Therefore, much of what I have to say today is really rooted in the concept of obedience.  But I want it to be heard through the lens of identity.

In many ways, though, this goes back to what I said yesterday.  When Peter talks about obedience, he isn’t doing it from the perspective of lesser beings commanded by someone greater, more intelligent, or more powerful.  When Peter talks about obedience, he isn’t talking about a resigned subservient behavior.  Peter talks about obedience that looks ahead towards the rest of the people with whom they will come into contact.  That’s why I want to focus on obedience through the lens of identity.  In order to get obedience right, we need to get identity right as well.

When we read Peter, as with all of the rest of the Biblical authors, we read the words of a person who is trying to see through the eyes of God.  As Peter looks through the eyes of God, he doesn’t focus on the here and now.  Rather, Peter focuses on the future to which we are always being pulled, always being called.  It is that future, and most importantly the people who are within that future, that has the focus of God and thus the focus of Peter.  That’s the identity that Peter is getting from God.  Because Peter is looking ahead, he can focus so well on identity and preparing himself to live out in community the very witness that God has placed within him.

This is why Peter can tell wives to submit to their husbands.  When they submit, they are more likely to be able to show God’s love to them if they do not already know God.  This is why Peter can talk about doing good in the midst of being mistreated and misaligned.  When we do good, people will see us for who we are and they will see the love of God shining through, especially against the darker context of being mistreated and maligned.  As I said yesterday, for Peter, obedience is really the groundwork for witness.  He can see it this way because his identity is in the Lord.  When he looks at the world through the eyes of God and not through his own eyes, he can see the opportunity for ministry all around.  His identity from God allows him to deeply understand why obedience is so important for being able to witness about the grace, love, and mercy of God.

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Year 6, Day 217: 1 Peter 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

You may not have realized that Peter wrote so much on obedience.  If we look at the witness of the Gospels, it really makes sense.  When we read through the Gospel stories, Peter is the man who tries everything and seemingly fails at His first attempt.  What does this show us?  He has a heart for obedience.  But it also shows us that he understands that there is a difference between desiring to be obedient and actually succeeding at being obedient.  Then we turn to Acts, where he develops into a strong and mighty tool in the hand of God.  In Acts, Peter has managed to sort out obedience in a very rich and meaningful way.

When we take this into consideration, we find that Peter really has some great thoughts with respect to obedience and its development.  Where I want this to take us in this blog is the “why.”  Why should we obedient?  What purpose does obedience serve except for the accomplishment of someone else’s will?

Do you notice that Peter doesn’t actually mention the accomplishment of God’s will as the answer to the why?  Naturally, I still believe that the accomplishment of God’s will is the primary reason.  After all, God’s hand at work is what we are all about.  But look deeply at why we are to be obedient.  We are to be obedient so that we do good things.  Why do we do good things?  Not for our reward in heaven!  No, we do good things so that when people look at us and accuse us and malign us and mistreat us they will be confronted with our charity and generosity and kindness.  We do good works so that the mean things that people will say about us will not resonate with the visible character that people see.  We are obedient as a protection against slander and mistreatment!

Isn’t that an interesting perspective on obedience.  So often obedience is looked down upon as being subservient and undesirable.  But Peter tells us here that obedience is actually for our own good and our own protection.  Obedience to the will and ways of God is what will keep the falsehoods of the world around us from harming our character and our witness.

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Year 6, Day 216: 1 Peter 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

Peter ends this chapter with a reminder that we are purified through our obedience to the truth.  Clearly, the idea of obedience was rather important to Peter.  It is our obedience that leads to our ability to have brotherly love within us.  It is our willingness to submit to God’s will that allows us to love others who are similarly submitted to God’s will.  In the end, our obedience is very important to our community.

How are we to be obedient?  We are to be like children, understanding that our Father knows and sees what is good for us far better than we do.  We are to be called holy, set apart for His work.  We are to work in fear, not phobia, but a fear in awe of the greatness of God and all that He can do beyond our ability to understand.

But why are we to obey Him?  He is the one who brought us into salvation.  He is the one who sent Christ to us.  Christ Himself was obedient to the will of the Father.  He is the one who raised Christ from the dead, why wouldn’t we be obedient to Him?  He is the one who fulfilled His own words.  Again, if He has the ability to speak truth into our future, why wouldn’t we obey Him?

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Year 6, Day 215: Joel 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

I think the message of Joel 3 is that God truly is in control.  He is the king.  He gets the last say.  His word is final, and His verdict will last forever.

Let’s look into this chapter more deeply.  Joel is certainly speaking against the world, specifically against the nations around the Hebrew people and even more specifically against Philistia and Tyre and Sidon.  God is angry with them for multiple reasons.

The question is, what did they do that was so bad?  Yes, they didn’t help out the Hebrew people.  Worse, the celebrated when the Hebrew people fell.  But their worst offense was that they saw the downfall of the Hebrew people as a means to profit themselves.  God finds this deplorable.  When we see people around us fall and we get excited about the possibility that the fall could mean for us, it shows us quite clearly more about ourselves than anything else.

It is in this fact that we see God as king.  The Hebrew people were doomed to go into their own captivity.  But God as King means that He also has the ability to restore them when they are become willing to repent and listen to Him once more.  But the surrounding nations didn’t need to act like vultures and swoop down upon their downfall to look for profit.  And in this we see that God is still king.  Even though these nations may profit in the short-term at the loss of the Hebrew people, God will bring them under justice and judgment in due course of action.  Because God is king, He can bring everyone into true and righteous judgment – even those who take advantage of us when we fall.

The thing to remember, though, is that God does not play favorites.  Just as God will avenge the Hebrew people when other people step over us when we fall, we need to remember that if He is king He will do the same to us.  We must remain humble.  We must remain true to our calling and not overreach what God has called us to do.

 

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Year 6, Day 214: Joel 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Joel 2 is the epitome of passages regarding forgiveness.  The chapter begins with a discussion about the enemy coming against the nation.  It speaks of judgment and wrath.  It speaks of guilt and wrongdoing.

The next section is a call to repentance.  It speaks for the people to acknowledge their guilt and come before God.  It speaks about true repentance being a thing of the heart, not just an outward act.

The third section promises the forgiveness of the Lord.  Here we learn that when we are told about our sin and repent of it, the Lord is faithful to forgive.  He will have mercy.  He will have pity.  There is no reason to fear.  We can find ourselves back into the provision of the Lord.

Quite often, though, we think that is the end.  We think that the process ends with our forgiveness and God restoring His provision.  That shows how self-centered we are!  In reality, the process ends with the reception of the Holy Spirit.  It is one thing to repent and be forgiven.  But the real joy in God’s presence is not the perishable provision that He faithfully gives.  The real joy is knowing that He will comes and dwell within us as He pours out His Spirit.

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Year 6, Day 213: Joel 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Joel 1 casts us into a highly symbolic and allegorical world.  That isn’t to say that Joel isn’t writing about very real and historical events.  However, those events cast he shadows of symbolism into our life.

Joel talks about the case of the people.  Hordes of locusts have come among the land.  They’ve stripped the land bare.  When farmers dig into the earth, they find that they are discovering that the seeds that they planted haven’t germinated and instead it has shriveled.  Because of the lack of seed production and the incoming locust plague, there is no harvest.  Since there is no harvest, the storehouses and granaries are empty.  There is no hope.  All is lost.  The people are with harvest: food and wine alike.

That’s the very real circumstance in which Joel finds his people.  However, there is an incredible spiritual analogy.  Let’s trace this backwards.  There is no harvest because the seeds don’t germinate.  In other words, when the seed – that is, faith – does not germinate it cannot produce a harvest.  When the faith that God plants within us is not allowed to germinate, it does not grow and produce any sort of harvest whatsoever!  God can plant faith into each of us, and He does!  But if we give that seed of faith no room to grow and change who we are, we should not expect a harvest within or without!

We can do this same line of thinking with the locust plague.  Why did the locusts come?  The people were faithless.  The people had turned against God, so god removed His hand of protection against them.  Without God’s hand to protect them, the land was free for the taking by the locusts.

In the end, the problem for Joel really does come down to the issue of faithlessness.  For me, this is an issue of identity.  When we are faithless, it is because our identity is rooted in ourselves and our own desires.  When we turn away from God and get our identity from ourselves, we can expect problems internal to ourselves (the seed won’t germinate to make a harvest) as well as external (the locusts come and devour what good was there).

However, when our identity is rooted in God and His will for our life, we can be faithful.  When we are faithful, we will live under His protection and provision.  When we are faithful we can expect a harvest within and outside of ourselves.

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Year 6, Day 212: Hosea 13-14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The last two chapters of Hosea are awful bleak.  As Hosea looks to the close of God’s message through Him, he sees a people who have refused to listen.  They refuse to hear.  They refuse to look at their life.  They refuse to change.  They refuse to admit that anything might be broken.  They want to live their life the way that they see fit and they want to be left alone while doing it.

This is why Hosea calls them the “morning mist” or “dew that passes away early” and “smoke from a window.”  Each of these things are extremely temporary.  They look neat for a very short time.  But the world comes along and with a remarkably little effort it gets rid of each of those things.  That’s what Hosea thinks as he looks upon the Hebrew people of his day.

However, as bleak as these words are – and most of the rest of chapters 13 and 14 – you’ll notice that Hosea doesn’t end with judgment and condemnation.  There are large sections of judgment and condemnation in these chapters, but it isn’t how they end.  They end with a promise of God to heal wounds and forgive apostasy and love freely.  He promises to protect them in His shadow.  He promises that they will flourish and blossom.  These are words of forgiveness and restoration.  This is the message that Hosea wants to end upon.

As Hosea says, the wise will heed these words.  The wise will look upon God’s ways and embrace them.  The wise will look towards the time of healing and restoration with hope and anticipation.  God’s forgiveness is an amazing and incredible gift for which we – like the Hebrew people before us – do not deserve.

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Year 6, Day 211: Hosea 11-12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

When we take a look at Hosea 11-12, we have a distinct contrast in themes.  In Hosea 11 we hear words from God that are words of mourning.  In Hosea 12 we hear words of indictment.  It’s not that these messages are conflicting in any way.  The Hebrew people have turned away from God.  It is only natural that God would mourn their desire for sinfulness and at the same time acknowledge their guilt.  Human beings often feel this mix off emotion when the people around them sin, it makes sense that God, who made us in His image, feels this too.

This is actually the perfect lead-in to why I am focusing on the idea of Father today.  When God looks at His people, He can see their sin.  He can burn in righteous anger at the way that we treat each other and pursue our own desires rather than pursuing His desires.  After all, He knows what is best for us in the long run.  So often our own pursuits don’t end up the way we want.  Therefore, He mourns when we continue to turn and follow that which is not in our best interests.

Can you hear the words of mourning in Hosea 11?  He loves us in our childlike innocence.  He cares and nurtures us, often in ways that we completely fail to recognize.  He looks upon us with gentleness and kindness.  Yet in the midst of all of our sin, He cannot give us up.  He continues to fight for us.  He continues to desire relationship.  That’s what it’s like to be a true Father.

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Year 6, Day 210: Hosea 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

“Israel is a luxurious vine that yields its fruit.”  Yet, the more fruit it yielded the more alters they built.  Israel is showing its identity.  The Lord allowed them to be successful and prosper.  However, as they became more successful they also grew a taste for success.  They fell into superstition and false beliefs about why they were successful.  They stopped remembering that it was God that made them successful and latched onto other things.  From God’s perspective, the chief offense of those other things is other gods.  They built alters to other gods to continue to try and increase their success.

However, as they grow in power and wealth and overall success, they lose sight of any leadership, not just God.  They also claim to not have a king because they have no fear of the Lord.  They aren’t really being led by their leaders.  They are led by their identity: the pursuit of their success and overall wealth and status.  As prosperity increases, not only does the need for humbling oneself before God decrease, so does the desire to humble oneself before the appointed leadership.  As we become more successful and more prosperous, our identity is wrapped up in getting what we want and no longer looks to what is truly good for the community around us.  When our identity is off, we lose spiritual and communal perspective.

Hosea gives us some specific characteristics that we can see as Israel loses spiritual perspective.  Israel plowed iniquity and reaped injustice.  Israel trusted in its own strength, rather than honestly humbling themselves and knowing God’s strength in comparison to their own weaknesses.  When we lose our identity from God, we become focused on ourselves.  Our methods become unscrupulous.  We no longer care about things like justice and right.  Life becomes about me.  That’s what life looks like when we forget our identity in the Lord.

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Year 6, Day 209: Hosea 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Prophet

• Prophet: A prophet is one of the fivefold ministry categories that is used throughout the Bible and especially lifted up in Ephesians 4:11. The prophet is primarily concerned with whether or not the people are hearing the voice of God.  The prophet is also concerned about whether or not the people are responding to God’s voice.

When we are reading through the minor prophets, we need to remember that the first group are typically writing about the Northern Kingdom of Israel and looking towards the Assyrian captivity.  That’s where Hosea fits in.  Thus, when we read through this book we hear lots of warning, lots of speech about bad consequences should they not repent, and all kinds of imagery that will put fear in your eyes.

It is in books like these that we get a great glimpse of what it is like to be a prophet who is asked to bring an unfavorable message.  Did you hear the description of the prophet in verse 7?  “The prophet is a fool.  The man of spirit is mad.”  Why does Hosea say these things?  “Because of your great iniquity and great hatred.”  What does it look like to be a prophet called to bring an unfavorable message?  It means that the people think you are a fool and out of your mind.  As verse 8 indicates, it means that people look for ways to set snares in your path.  It means that you are hated, even in the place of God, which is where you should be the most welcome.

Do you hear how this chapter ends?  Suddenly we get a change in perspective.  The whole chapter is written from the perspective of God, but suddenly at the end we get Hosea’s own perspective.  It is mournful.  What does this show us?  It shows us that the prophet who brings an unfavorable message is also a prophet who mourns for the people.  It is a prophet who is at home in heartache.

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