Warren Rachele

Psalm 107–Do Tell

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south. (Ps 107:2-3)

The culture that we have developed within the Church puts an emphasis on the shiny, clean you. Reborn, redeemed? Give effusive thanks for that, Christian!

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. (vv8-9)

The psalmist reminds us, however, of the value of recounting the journey prior to redemption. Others benefit directly and indirectly from the journey, from seeing the hills and valleys overcome. They gain a deeper perspective on redemption when they see sin beaten, sin removed, sin forgiven and washed clean. The psalmist tells of the wandering, the failure, the enslavement, the loss and greed—all forgotten by Yahweh in an instant when His people focused their devotion on Him.

Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord. (v43)

Grace and peace to you.

image Lewis & Clark College

Learning to Kneel–Two

Does the grace, mercy and love of God preserve us from suffering the same fate as that visited upon Nadab and Abihu? Do we no longer heed the words of Moses paraphrasing his experience?

Among those who approach me I will show myself holy;

in the sight of all the people I will be honored. (Lev 10:3)

Worshippers read this passage and cannot help but wonder why God would refuse to be worshipped. The young priests added incense to their censers, lit them and swung them back and forth, spreading the pleasing aroma heavenward.

Only to have it received by Yahweh as the stench of death.

So offensive was the smell to God that he sent fire down the same path that the smoke travelled, instantly killing the priests as one might remove an annoying gnat. So rapid was the response to the impropriety of worship that Aaron, the mouthpiece of Moses, is struck silent.

In our modern worship mindset we ask, why would God be offended at their worship? Why would God be offended at any worship? The passage is silent about God’s reasons, nor are we in a position to demand explanation. God alone sets the standards for worship. We can speculate as to the details of the breach. Perhaps they entered the sanctuary unprepared to worship or came at an inappropriate hour. The fire that lit the censers may have been improperly sourced or unholy. The incense might have been similarly profane.

We don’t know the reasons for God’s offense in the case of the priests, but the encounter must cause us to reflect upon our own worship. Are we equally impious?

The words of Moses are a warning to communities stretching into our own day. We must learn to worship properly so that we may worship properly.

Grace and peace to you.

image moria

A House Divided

The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris

Pastor Robert Morris adds to growing library of works about the often misunderstood and sometimes forgotten third member of the Holy Trinity. This book is his attempt to clear away some of the mystery and confusion that surrounds God in this person. This volume succeeds wildly on one level, but struggles to find its footing on another.

The first half of the book having to do with the reality of the Holy Spirit and His work is a good addition to the growing attention the Spirit is receiving. It is scriptural and doctrinal, and does a superior job of presenting the reality of the Spirit to a church that is desperately in need of an outpouring of the Spirit’s power. In addition to the fine explication, Morris applies the truths to our daily lives in way that makes us desire more and more of the Spirit.

Sadly, the second part of the book doesn’t hold up the expectations set out in the first. After adhering close to the Evangelical median in his discussion of the reality and work of the Spirit, Morris tips into a scattered series of chapters about separate Baptisms in the Spirit and the miraculous gifts. An extensive presentation of these topics is beneficial to have, but the way in which the author strikes, fires off an anecdote and then moves on is less than satisfying.

Inconsistency aside, The God I Never Knew can serve as a fine introduction to the Spirit or a reminder of the power that He brings to the believer. Some will find the theological diversions unnerving, but understanding the doctrines contributes to the growth of all Christians.

I’m grateful to WaterBrook press who supplied this copy for review.

Learning to Kneel-One

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;*

If you have ever paddled the quiet waters of a remote lake, gently placing the blades into the water so as not to churn the stillness around you…

If you have ever chanced upon the grandeur of a mountain vista or a verdant valley or the deep crimson of a desert sunset and found yourself quietly absorbing the beauty…

If you have ever held a newborn, warm and taking his first few breaths, and had no words to utter…

… you are familiar with the feelings that overtake you as you truly enter the presence of the Living God.

Many a sanctuary this coming Sunday will be filled, not with awful, prayerful silence overwhelmed by the presence of God, but the noise of a hundred casual conversations that grow slowly louder as more of the brethren enter the room. Bibles will remain closed, guitars will be tuned, and children will play.

As if God will appear at the appointed hour, like the train from Bakersfield, and all we need to do is to be there to meet Him.

Reverence is the first lesson in learning to kneel. This requires a change of attitude and a soul attuned to the Omnipresent God rather than the culturally popular Compartmentalized God. My next post will begin here, unpacking the twin threads of omnipresence and reverence and noting how a heightened awareness of both can radically change our times of worship. This coming Sunday however, enter your sanctuary or meeting room and try sitting quietly, making yourself aware of His enveloping presence. Pray for the service. Pray for the visiting family sitting behind you. Pray a Psalm. See if others follow your lead as the moments tick by toward the first notes of a song. See if your preparation hasn’t brought minutely closer to the throne.

Grace and peace to you.

*Psalm 95:6

image Joshua Conley

Psalm 106 – How Quickly

But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.

In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. (Ps 106:13-14)

To read the Old Testament is to thumb through a catalog of mankind’s many failures. As much a diary as it is a mirror, the pages are rife with grotesque and subtle reminders of our own tendencies. In the two psalms that conclude Book IV of the psalter, the psalmists rehearse Israel’s repeated incidents of glorifying and celebrating God for his mighty deeds, followed by a meteoric descent into the waters of the Lethe.

Psalms 105 and 106 must be read together to gain the full impact of the psalmist’s purpose. Where 105 catalogs God’s unending faithfulness to the people who are called by His name, 106 reminds hearers of the incessant unfaithfulness. The juxtaposition of the two is jarring, and we cannot help but marvel at His Love and Israel’s failure.

And the myriad failures in our own lives.

Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin. (v43)

The Christian has little excuse for continued purposeful rebellion. The Spirit serves in His role as paraclete in countless ways, one being the early warning when our tendency toward corruption threatens to affect our behavior. We can avoid repeating the history of our family line by becoming more aware and responsive to His whispers, warning us off of unglorifying speech, thoughts and behaviors.

Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. (v47)

Save us, Lord our God, from ourselves and our bent toward failing you. Let us give thanks and praise for your redemption and your power to live out the new creation you’ve begun in us.

Grace and peace to you.

image DaveKav

Follow.Me

One.Life by Scot McKnight

The time has come.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news!

Christians are well known for substituting legalism and activity for biblical discipleship of the kind that demands an investment of nothing less than your entire life. McKnight brings his always practical insight to bear on the question of what it should actually look like to walk in the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ announced.

At the core of One.Life is the notion of being all in. That is, life in Christ’s kingdom demands the full commitment of your one life. It was never intended to be a part-time or compartmentalized pursuit. To fully experience the full depth and breadth of the Spirit-enabled kingdom you must go beyond sampling it and make it your complete reality.

Scot touches on a wide variety of beliefs, thoughts and behaviors that generally form the contours of the Christian life, examining each in a kingdom light. In some ways, the book is The Jesus Creed part two. Where that volume helped us to flesh out what it meant to love God above all and love our neighbors as ourselves, One.Life challenges every area of life that we might be tempted to separate as outside of the kingdom.

One.Life is eminently practical on nearly every page. Professor McKnight has a lifetime of experience from which to share examples and the reader will find a variety of lives that mirror their own experiences from which lessons can be extracted. “…the Kingdom.Life only happens when you give yourself (your One.Life) to Jesus, and that means also to His kingdom dream and to those who are in that kingdom dream already.”

One.Life at Zondervan

I’m grateful to Zondervan who provided this copy for review.

Psalm 105–Don’t Know Much About History

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.

Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all his wonderful acts. (Psalm 105:1-2)

The awe of the sovereign God of the universe is sufficient inspiration to invite the totality of our worship. He is the God of all creation, the giver of life and the sustainer of souls. Worship-worth/ship-should be the natural relationship between created and Creator.

Then the mind gets in the way…

The brain tells the heart to justify the worship. Give me a reason, it says. The psalmist knows this tendency well. To call Israel to worship he rehearses the glory of Yahweh’s interactions with His people.. Glory in his holy name…Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

He remembers his covenant forever..He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree

They wandered from nation to nation…He allowed no one to oppress them

Have you spent the time allowing God to remind you of your history together? The wonders that He has worked in your life, the trials he has sustained you through, the love He blankets you with. The act of rehearsing your history may be a personal motivation that deepens your worship to depths you have yet to experience.

Praise the Lord. (v45)

image bjornmeansbear

23 Nuggets

The Little Red Book of Wisdom by Mark DeMoss

In a compact volume that begs to be reread and handed out to everyone you know, author Mark DeMoss collects twenty-three chapters of proverbial wisdom applicable to anyone with enough discipline to apply it. DeMoss highlights his own experiences but the lessons learned at the side of his father and through the lives of others form the fabric that knits it all together. This is a book you will give to your son or daughter, your associates while keeping one copy for yourself close by for regular refreshers. This would be an excellent companion to P.M. Forni’s Choosing Civility.

So many books in this category (Business and Economics) purport to teach wisdom but, more often than not, they disappoint. The critical difference between these and The Little Red Book of Wisdom is a lack of clear integrity. This is not to say that other business authors lack integrity but their focus on profit, growth and self-advancement shadow their wisdom. DeMoss approaches life differently, in the same vein as Truett Cathy, and he places God and Christian-rooted ethics first. The lessons that emerge from his experience can then be traced back to a singular source of truth.

While there are no chapters that you will be tempted to skip, there are many standouts in the book’s pages. Turning nearly to the end, I found the chapter having to do with deathbed regrets especially poignant. Mark points out the advantage of thinking early in life to avoid the regrets later in life that arise from unwise choices in youth. If my son can benefit from a single chapter, I hope it is this one as his whole life unfolds ahead of him.

Savor this book. You can read it quickly in a couple sittings but you will miss the benefits that come from letting his thoughts sink in and bang around a bit. Much like the book of Proverbs he references so often, small sips of wisdom are all the Spirit needs to embed in your character in order for your integrity to be polished and put on display for the world to see.

Thomas Nelson – The Little Red Book of Wisdom

I am grateful to Thomas Nelson for supplying this copy for review.

Psalm 104–The Beams of His Upper Chamber

He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. (Psalm 104:2-3)

Feeling the rays of the sun upon our face is one of the simple joys we take for granted. The warmth that brings rejuvenation, a reminder that we are alive. It relaxes us and reminds us of our toil while inhabiting this mortal coil.

The fragility of our skin in the sun’s rays is also a reminder of the source of those rays. We cannot stay long in even the mildest weather as the unseen wavelengths do their work on us. As the beams of His upper chambers strike us our façade, no matter how thick, we are reminded of how His holiness envelopes us. We cannot hide our failings in the light and we are brought to confession and repentance.

Bathe in the light.

Grace and peace to you.

image Roger Foo

Psalm 103–So Great Is His Love

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (Ps 103:8)

Of all of the great promises in Scripture, this stands out for those who only see God in terms of His wrath. For many within His people and many more who still stand apart, the image of the Holy Father is not one of love, but one of a God of vengeance, sweeping His eyes east and west watching for any infraction that might be an opportunity to visit retribution upon their heads.

While we are wrong to discount His anger at the ways in which we treat one another upon His creation, we also err when we see His holiness only in terms of righteous wrath. God is patient, demanding holiness, but teaching rather than terminating. When you live with the constant fear of failure and its outcome, the fruit of joy is never harvested in your life. Many Christians have followed this path, living their entire lives with a very narrow understanding of God’s character.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (vv 11-12)

This unmatched, vast and measureless forgiveness is one of the prime character traits of God. Far from the hair-trigger vengeful God of lore, He desires a loving relationship rooted in love much more. When we look to the cross, we don’t see charges waiting to held against us, we see a fresh start that is refreshed by our prayers of repentance and our journey toward greater and greater holiness.

Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, O my soul. (v22)

Grace and peace to you.

image Ministerios Cash Luna