So you want to be King?

It surprises me how easily some people are distracted from regularly reading God's Word -- His eternal and up-to-date Message to us, His children.

Instead of reading the Bible as a part of their daily walk with the Lord, they stumble through the day without that divine comfort and source of wisdom.

Not just many of us "regular" people, but also the "shakers and movers" of our world. 

What wise counsel they are missing!

In Deuteronomy 17:18-19 God cautions the future kings of Israel:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.

Notice the precise nature of these commands:

1. The King was to personally copy the Scriptures by hand. He was to personally copy and study the Word, not depend on advisers, no matter how experienced, to decide issues.

"Your statues are my delight; they are my counselors," we read in Psalm 119:24.

When you copy a text by hand, you are learning it. Making note of every word and the components of every phrase.

He was not to instruct a scribe to make his copy!

2. He was to keep a copy with him. Close at hand. So that he could refer to it throughout the day as he faced important decisions.

3. He was to read it daily. Not often. Not when he remembered to, but "all the days of his life." That means every day. Like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who "examined the Scriptures every day," we need God's Word constantly, just like rest, and food and water. It gives us strength and guidance for victory.

4. Studying his Bible would teach him to revere (honor) the LORD. This is life-changing information -- we learn to revere and honor God through reading His Word - which of us does not yearn to honor Him more? Well, that's how we learn to do it!

James tells us "do not merely listen to the word...do what it says.." and that is "how we achieve the righteous life that God desires" (James 1:22, 19).

So to achieve the righteous life that God desires -- we read (and obey) His Word! So profoundly simple!


"I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word" a famous King once explained (Psalm 119:15-16)

Meditating on God's holy standards - considering (pondering) His ways - not neglecting His Word - that's revering and honoring God!

5. He was to follow carefully the words of the law. That law he copied, and kept close and read daily -- he was also to obey it.

"I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me." Psalm 119:102

"If you love Me, you will obey Me," Jesus said to His disciples often (cf. John 14:15, etc.)


All these commands to earthly kings also apply to us.

The King was to obey God in every matter. The same applies to us. We are even more special than kings. We are called "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1 Peter 2:9).

Aren't we right now in preparation to be rulers? The Scriptures tell us that someday we will reign with Him in His Kingdom.

Shouldn't we, right now, begin doing what God commands His kings to do?

Feeding The World

                                        How To Feed the World   

          Luke 9  --  Great crowds were following Jesus. Late one afternoon the disciples came to Him and said He should send the crowd away so they could go somewhere and find food.

           He replied, "You give them something to eat."

           What a command! He wanted them to feed the crowd!

            As I look around today I see a hungry crowd everywhere I look. I think He's telling us to feed them!

           Gloria Gaither wrote a beautiful song about that. She titled it "I Then Shall Live" and sings it to Sibelius' composition "Finlandia." These are my favorite passages when I think about that event recorded in Luke 9:

I then shall live as one who's been forgiven

I'll walk with joy to know my debts are paid

I know my name is clear before my Father

I am His child and I am not afraid.

So greatly pardoned, I'll forgive my brother

The law of love I gladly will obey.

Your Kingdom come around and through and in me

Your Power and Glory, let them shine through me.

Your hallowed Name, O may I bear with honor

And may Your living Kingdom come in me.

The bread of life, O may I share with honor, 

And may You feed a hungry world through me."

Let's go out and feed our hungry world today!

    

       

How Does A Miracle Start?

I'm reading again in The Chumash (Stone Edition) -- The Jewish commentary on the Pentateuch of the Old Testament -- and found this great idea:

You shall make a Menorah of pure gold, hammered out shall the Menorah be made, its base, its shafts, its cups, its buds and its blossoms shall be hammered from it. Six branches shall emerge from its sides, three branches of the Menorah from its one side and three branches from its second side, three cups engraved like almonds on the one branch...the buds and branches shall be on one piece...(Exodus 25)
~~~~~~~


I am intrigued with the idea of how a miracle begins, at least as it is explained in The Chumash (Jewish commentary on the Pentateuch). The article begins with the construction of the Menorah for the tabernacle.
The text says that God's instructions for making the Menorah included that all its shapes and forms had to be made from one gold ingot: nothing could be made separately and then attached. It all had to be made of one piece. How could this be done? Hebrew tradition says that Moses could not visualize this and so God showed him a Menorah of fire. But Moses still despaired of being able to make it properly, and so God instructed him to "throw an ingot into a fire -- and then the completed Menorah emerged."

They base this on the idea that the Hebrew wording starts you shall make, and then the wording changes to shall be made.

So, the commentary reasons, Moses, once God showed him how to make the Menorah, actually began the process of crafting it, but then God assisted him. So when the ingot was cast into the fire as part of the normal work of crafting it, the work was completed miraculously by God.

This is so interesting. But the really great part is the rest of the paragraph:

This is how God typically performs miracles. First Man must do what he can, and then God comes to his aid. Similarly, at the time of the Splitting of the Sea, God commanded Moses to split the waters by raising his staff and it was only after Moses had done so that God performed the awesome miracle. In Egypt and throughout the years in the Wilderness, Moses performed acts that resulted in miracles; clearly only God makes miracles, but He wants man to initiate them


I am thinking about this now. It is such a simple idea: God wants us to initiate His miracles.....Jesus told the family and friends of Lazarus, "Take away the stone," and then he told Lazarus to emerge, alive, from his burial tomb.

Some men brought the paralyzed man to Jesus, and Jesus healed him.

The woman touched the hem of His garment.

"We only have five loaves of bread and two fish," the disciples said to Jesus. "Bring them here to Me," He said.

"Strike the rock," God told Moses.

"Choose some men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands" Moses told Joshua. And "Aaron and Hur held his hands up--one on one side, on the other--so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekites with the sword."

It's a simple concept -- God wants us to initiate the action and then He finishes, or completes it, in a way that is miraculous to us.


Of course nothing God does is miraculous to Him.

Another thought -- it must have something to do with obedience, too. We must eagerly obey God's command to get the benefit of the miracle.

Just more amazing thoughts to ponder on our Journey.....from the ancient rabbis! 

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The Right Time is Now!

 
                                                           

                                                                 Now is the Time!

God tells us to seek Him....Now!

"Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55:6)

What are we to do?

Seek Him! When? Now! Why now? Because He is near!

Then in Jeremiah we read: 'You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart..seek Me...I will be found by you' (Jeremiah 29:13). What a promise!

Then Jesus says in Matthew 7: "seek and you will find."

Pretty obviously an urgent theme here!

And pretty obviously our amazing God WANTS TO BE FOUND!!!

He is not a God who hides Himself - Adam and Eve hid -- God did not.

He came to them so He would be found by them.

And our God never changes.

He wants to be found by us!

Are you speechless?

I am, and that doesn't happen often!

I'm Engraved! - Part 2

 

God's chosen people are, because of their sinful disobedience, living in  exile in Babylon. Their homeland is in ruins. They grieve and yearn to go back home! They cry: "The LORD has forsaken me, the LORD has forgotten me."

  And God responds, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands." (Recorded in Isaiah 49).

Thoughts from Charles Spurgeon:

"How can I have forgotten you, when I have engraved you on the palms of My hands? How can you forget My constant remembrance when the memorial is carved into My flesh? We do not know what to wonder at most -- the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of His people? He has kept His promises a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him.

  He never fails. He is never a dry well. He is never a setting sun, a passing meteor, or fading vapor. And yet we are continually troubled with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears as if our God were the mirage of the desert.

  "I have engraved you." It does not say "your name."

The name is there, but that is not all. "I have engraved you."

  Consider the depth of this. "I have engraved your person, your image, your circumstances, your temptations, your weaknesses, your works -- YOU -- everything about you. I have put it all here."

Will you ever say again that your God has forsaken you when He has engraved you on His own palms?"

Those nail-scarred hands?

We can say, "No one who trusts in You will ever be disappointed." 

   -- Psalm 25:3