Two Wheeled Uphill Repentance

Several mornings a week, I try to get out and ride my bike early, before my day begins.  I have a route that loops out away from our house, and rolls through some hills and valleys, and finishes back at the house 25 miles later.  I've found that I tend to like to ride it the same direction each time, in fact I've only rode it in one direction all summer.  I know where the hills are, where to pick up my pace, where to watch for dogs, and where the temperature will drop as I go through a valley by a stream.  It's really a great ride.

Today, I decided to ride it backwards.  Now, I know that according to basic 7th grade science, and an elementary understanding of geography, that when I ride in a loop, any amount of distance that I descend, I will have to climb.  I also know that regardless of which direction I ride on that loop, I will climb and descend the exact same distance.  But I gotta tell you, it felt like all I did was climb today.  It was crazy.  I don't know how it's possible, but somewhere on that route, I must have passed through a wormhole in the time/space continuum that allowed me to climb 80% more than I descended on that loop.  It was nuts!

I also was laughing along the way, because I was noticing things I had never seen before.  This is a route I've ridden dozens of times this summer, and I was seeing things for the first time today.  Little things, like, you know,...a house....a barn....small stuff like that.  It was so amusing to me just because I couldn't believe I had missed so much before, just because I was going in one direction.  Then today, when I turned and went the other way, everything looked and felt different.  Same places, same roads, same farms, but it all looked and felt totally different.

It kind of hit me as I was riding, that is what repentance is like.  God calls us to repent, and follow Him.  When we repent, it means we turn 180 degrees and go the other way.  So, when we are lying, we stop lying and start telling the truth.  When we are angry in a selfish way, we quit and begin showing love selflessly.  If we find ourselves trying to control our lives ourselves, we turn and begin to live by faith and trust God where we can't see Him.  Repentance is a simple thing.

I think that so often we find ourselves far down a bad road in our lives, where we've made horrible decisions, been selfish, faithless, and just plain sinful; we convince ourselves that we need to uproot and start over in a completely new place.  The only answer is to dump our friends, our location, our life and run away and start over.  That is usually due more to being embarrassed than it is to wisdom.  God calls us to repent, to run the course backwards, to climb where we had coasted before, and to trust Him where we had tried to climb on our own and failed.

What is amazing in life as we repent, is that we travel the same paths we always do, interact with the same people, face the same challenges, yet it all looks and feels different.  Repentance makes all things new.  It's pretty cool how God can do that.  We don't need to change the location of where we live out our faith to get a new start.  We just need to repent, and go back the way we came.

It's a life changer.

What is that you need to repent of today?

A Miracle Plant, a Hateful Prophet, and Them

I read through the book of Jonah today in my reading.  The part that sticks out to me in the story is why Jonah ran in the first place.  If you've never read the book for yourself, it's very short.  Take a few minutes today, and sit down and read it.

Jonah is told to go preach to another city, in another nation, to a different people.  They are his political enemies. He says no, and runs.  You know most of this part of the story.  Big storm, sailors have to throw Jonah overboard, swallowed by big fish, fish throws up, Jonah preaches in Ninevah, people of Ninevah turn to God.  If you've been around church for awhile, you've probably heard the story.  Then at the end, God has to get on Jonah for being unhappy that the people repented.

But it just hit me today why.  They were political enemies.  Jonah says that he knew if he went, that God would forgive them because He is so good.  Jonah doesn't want the people forgiven.  He hates them.

Hmmm.....

Who in my life would I be upset if God forgave?  Who do I hate so much that I'd rather them suffer than seek God's forgiveness?  No, really, who would it be?

Because God is having none of it.  He tells Jonah that they are his children, and he needs to get over it.

Is there someone that we would secretly like to see suffer?  What will it take to see them through God's eyes?  To love them the way God does?

For Jonah, he had to go through a storm, be buried at sea, and then be digested by a fish for three days.  Then, he only got 1/2 of it.  God had to grow a miracle plant, then kill it, and the scold him.

And at the end of the story, it never tells us if Jonah got it or not.  It's open ended.

Just like your story and mine.  It's not done.

Will we get it?  Will we offer forgiveness and mercy to those "others" in our life today?

The Power of the *

I was reading in 1 Kings 15 today, and it is talking about the different kings of Judah and Israel.  One of the kings, Asa, follows God, and the writer compares him to his great great grandfather David.  So, a couple of hundred years after David has died, he is still seen as the standard.  Here is what the verse says about David:

"⁵ For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD's commands all the days of his life--except in the case of Uriah the Hittite." 1 Kings 15:5 (NIV)

David has an * on his record.  He kept all of the commands of God, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.  That was Bathsheba's husband, the woman he had an affair with.  Uriah was the general in his army whom he had murdered.

So many times today, we have athletes with great records, but there is an * on their sheet, either for cheating, steroid use, or whatever else.

It's the power of the *.

I really don't want to have a record that is 99% great, but then have an * after it.  "Jason did very well, and served God faithfully for decades, except for *".  God is working on my to understand that the little habits, the  small sins that I coddle, the things that no one sees today, those are the things that lead up to the *.

What is yours?  Is there one?  Are you forming habits, and babying sins because they are "small", that are going to lead to an * on your life one day?  Be ruthless.  Go after it all.  Because of God's generous grace and forgiveness, we always have a second chance.  I want my life to leave behind a !, not an *.

What about you?

You Lying, Stealing, Rotten Jesus Lover! (new blog post)

Can you be a man or woman of God, and lie to a pastor?  Can you steal and have God use you to do good in amazing ways?  Is it okay to deceive people, hang around the wrong crowd, and be dishonest, all in the name of serving God?



No.

And yes?

Obviously God tells us to do the right things, to speak truth, to be honest.  It is always the best policy.  It's not just a saying, it's true.  There are deep consequences for doing things our own way and ignoring God.

But then you read in 1 Samuel about David.  The dude is a chronic liar and deceiver.  In chapter 21, he lies to a priest in order to get food and weapons. and later when it's discovered, the only thing he is sorry for is that he didn't kill the shepherd who told on him.  He lies to a king of a different country and pretends to be insane, so that he can escape safely.  He steals food, he deceives people, he forms a small army of guys who are the bottom of society; thieves, robbers, etc.

But somehow, God uses him and continues on with His plan to make David king.

What??

Yeah, that's how life works.  David wasn't perfect.  Deal with it.  He had a LOT of growing up to do and maturing to complete.  He was a young guy making dumb decisions.  BUT, and it's a big BUT, he wanted to keep moving in the right direction.  We see him praying and asking God for direction in life.  We find him honoring the King who God had appointed, instead of grabbing for power on his own.  In the middle of a lot of bad decisions, he makes a few good ones.  You understand what this makes David, don't you?

Normal.

Completely normal.

This is our lives.  We all stumble and fall.  We all sin and turn away from God at times.  But, when you stumble, what direction are you falling?  I mean, is your life moving towards God overall, or away from God.  Falling isn't the big deal.  The bigger issue is do we fall towards God or away from God?

David was falling towards God.

That was enough.  God kept working with him, and he kept growing.

I hope I can keep falling towards God as well.

Taking a Turn from the Worst

There is a fairly famous verse in Deuteronomy 4 that goes like this:

"29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."

In church, we often talk about how comforting this verse is, how encouraging it is.  We read it, discuss it, and quote it. We make pretty posters with it on them.  We cross stitch it into wall hangings.  We ... well, you get the point.

And often we misunderstand it.

We live our lives doing our best to follow God and obey Him.  We try and try, and have a mixture of success and failure.  But at some point, all of us fail in big ways.  We fall flat on our faces, we blow it, we make fools of ourselves and our faith.  For a few of us, it's in a big, ugly, public way and we feel humiliated.  For many of us, its in more private ways, where we know we've messed up, and wonder if God could ever forgive us.

On those days, this verse may not feel encouraging.  We haven't been seeking God with all our heart and all our soul, and we've made a complete mess out of everything.  Now we are too far gone, and there's no coming back.  Things can begin to feel very, very, very hopeless.

If only we would read the rest of the verses around this one verse.
 
"24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger,26 I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.28 There you will worship gods of wood and stone made by human hands, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.
31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God;"

Did you catch that?  This verse is packed into a section where Moses tells the people what will happen to them if they disobey God.  They are getting ready to inherit this huge blessing, and Moses is desperately trying to warn them.  If they wander from God, they will lose everything.  They will worship fake Gods, and turn their back on the real God.  If they get really, really ugly about it, God will take away their blessing (the land) and ship them off to other lands.  Once they get there, if they STILL won't turn around, it will get worse.  At this point, they are about as far from God as they can get in their hearts, they are stubborn, they have lost everything, and He is MAD at them.

Then comes our little verse: 


"29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul." 


And do you catch how it ends?  

"31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God;"


He is, you know.  He loves us, and when we are truly broken, when we want God, He is there waiting for us.  He doesn't want us to come to Him as perfect people who never mess up, He just wants us to come to Him.


I don't know what it is you've done.  I'm sure it's been painful.  But He is waiting.  No matter how bad your mess is, it isn't as bad as what the Hebrew's did.


And it was into their mess that God sent Jesus.


He still does the same thing today.

Hmmmms, Hymns, and Him

Leviticus 26 is terrifying!  In this chapter, God promises the people that if they will do what is right, and will continue to follow Him, He will make them invincible.  He will take them and turn them into an amazing force, bless them with food and resources, and give them peace and joy.  All for being obedient to what they are supposed to do.  That's a good deal.

Then He discusses what happens if they won't do what is right.  At first, when you read it, it seems overboard in how rough it is.  God says He will drive them from their homes, they will starve to death, they will have sores and diseases, and all sorts of bad stuff.  At first read, God comes off like a jerk and a bully.

But wait, think about it.  If they simply do what is right, do what they are supposed to do, God offers to bless them in one big act.  Just for doing what they are supposed to do anyway.

But on the punishment, it comes in three waves.  He gives the first level of punishment.  Then, if they won't stop being disobedient, He gives a second, tougher level of punishment.  If they still won't turn around, a third, even harsher punishment will drop.  Do you see what He is doing?  The rewards come in a flood all at once for simply obedience.  The punishment comes gradually, in waves.  In fact, the people do just what God warned them not to do, and the punishment took hundreds of years to fall on them.  But at first, when they were obedient, they received ALL of the blessings He promised.

If that isn't a sure sign of grace, He adds one more section at the end.  Check this out:

40 “ ‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me,41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin,42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham..."

Even after they disobey Him repeatedly, forcing Him to use all three levels of punishment, if they will simply stop, turn around (that's what repent means), and ask for His forgiveness, it will all stop.  That's all it takes.  God's blessings flow over them like a flood, His punishments trickle in over hundreds of years, and one honest act of repentance, and all is good again.

THAT is amazing.  THAT is grace.  

Maybe that's why we sing the song...

Abandoned by All. Trusted by a Few.

Ever made a decision that you knew was bad, but you did it anyway?  And then, when the decision is carried out, you're hit with total heart break over it?  Yeah?  Well, Judas did too.  He sold Jesus out for money, and then regretted it.

The problem is, He still didn't understand Jesus, even in his sadness and guilt.

Peter denied Jesus three times, but later Jesus offers him the chance to be forgiven, and he goes on to lead the church.

Judas would have been offered the same forgiveness, had he been willing to face the pain.  But he took the quick way out, and missed out on redemption.  His shortcut ended any chance of forgiveness and joy.

So, what will you and I do today?  We will make mistakes.  We always do.  But what we do after those mistakes is the crucial part.  Do we run from them, create shortcuts, deny God, and ultimately let our mistakes destroy us and kill us?  Or, like Peter, will we be broken by our mistakes, and give God the chance to redeem us and offer us forgiveness?

Mistakes are universal.  We all blow it.  We all wander off on our own, sell God out, and deny Him at times.  It's called sin.  It is going to happen to each of us today, at some point.  But how we respond is what tells the world Who we belong to.  Judas was sad for selling out Jesus, but He still didn't trust Him.  Peter did.

When you blow it today, will you turn towards Jesus, or away from Him?  It makes all the difference between life and death.

The Ah-Ha Moment

As chapter 16 in John finishes out, I love how Jesus speaks to His disciples. They don't get what He is saying, so He lovingly clears it up for them. And then they have the Ah-Ha! moment where they get it (vs. 31). Notice that Jesus tells them ahead of time that they will run from Him, but that He isn't alone even then. He comforts them before they are heartbroken.

But what of the point on the cross where God turns His back on Jesus? Did Jesus not know that part was coming? Honestly, I don't know. On the one hand, He could have been protecting the disciples by not telling them everything that was to come. He doesn't tell them every detail beforehand, so that could be the case here.

But the Bible is also clear that Jesus learned as He went, that somehow God gave Him knowledge as He got older. So maybe Jesus didn't yet know that God would separate from Him and turn His back on Him on the cross.

The whole thing is confusing to me, I have to admit. What did He know, and when? I would love to hear what everyone else understands about this idea.

Either way though, we see in Jesus this desire to care for those around Him, even as they are getting ready to dessert Him in His worst hours. What love He has for them, for me, for us! I bail on Jesus all of the time, yet He continues to love me. That is an example worth trying to follow.

I would love any feedback you may have.