June 7, 2025

Genesis 13: 8-13 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me . . . If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right.". . . So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan . . . The two men parted company: Abram lived in . . . Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain . . . (NIV)

We can judge the fruit of a man, but we can rarely judge [his] motives with accuracy.*

At my house, when the kids were still home, we very rarely “set the table” for a meal; we usually just filled our plates at the stove before we headed to the table. My husband used to urge me to go first, thinking that my insistence on serving myself last was an attempt to be self-sacrificing. I finally got him to understand that my motives were purely self-serving: if I went first, my food would be cold by the time everyone else finished filling their plates, made their way to the table, and said the prayer. By going last, my chances of having a hot meal were much improved.

In this story, Abram and Lot were parting ways because their entourages were becoming too unwieldy to continue to dwell together. Abram defers to Lot, allowing him to choose first whether to go to the right or the left. I (and you, too, probably) have always assumed that Abram had to settle for the less desirable land because Lot selfishly chose the Jordan River plain that was “well-watered, like the garden of the Lord.” It would appear to be true – except that it was recently brought to my attention that Abram didn’t complain, and Scripture doesn’t condemn – or even comment on – the men’s choices. Our low opinion of Lot’s character may be reinforced by the whole Sodom and Gomorrah incident, but Abram’s future choices weren’t always the wisest, either.

We don’t even know which direction Abram would have taken if he had been given the first choice. For all we know, he got exactly what he wanted. This should serve as a reminder that we must not be so quick to judge the motives of others. If we don’t have all the data - if we don’t live inside the other person’s head - the only judgment we are qualified to make is between what is sinful and what is not.  We can’t even make judgments regarding the wisdom of another’s choices based merely on the outcome because even when we choose wisely, bad things often still happen.

Sometimes, we just need to mind our own business. We should ask God to help us determine when our opinion matters.

None knows the weight of another’s burden.*

June 6, 2025

Matthew 22: 29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (NIV)

You ought to know more than a little bit about the Bible.*

This is Jesus’ gentle way of saying, “That was a stupid question.” The Sadducees thought they were going to trick Jesus with their hypothetical situation about a woman who had been married to, and outlived, seven brothers, and their question about whose wife she would be at the resurrection. They didn’t even believe in the resurrection so we can be pretty sure that they weren’t asking because they wanted to learn something from Jesus.

If they had known the Scriptures, the Sadducees would have known that marriage is an earthly institution, not a heavenly one (verse 30). (Keep your jokes to yourself!) If they had known the power of God, they would have known that he is the God of the living, not the God of the dead (verse 32). If they had known God, they would have known his power.

Josh McDowell lists ignorance as the number one reason that people reject Christ.* We might say that to know him is to love him. In Romans chapter one, Paul writes that ignorance is no excuse for not knowing God because “his eternal power and divine nature” speak for themselves. But such basic knowledge of God is not saving knowledge. As Christians, we are called to introduce the lost to Christ and to reflect his character in our lives. If we aren’t fulfilling our duty, we, too, are without excuse and the world is lost.

The right knowledge of God consists in doing our duty.*

June 5, 2025

Genesis 32: 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. (NIV)

Anyone who spends time with the Lord will find it evidenced in his life.*

Back in Genesis chapter 28, Jacob had an encounter with God that involved angels and a stairway to heaven. (I’m pretty sure that Led Zeppelin was not performing that night!) Now Jacob finds himself wrestling with someone identified only as “a man,” but when the bout was over, Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he struggles with God.” Whether the man was really God or just God’s representative, Jacob came away from the experience with physical evidence of his face-to-face meeting with God – a limp.

Have you ever stayed up all night wrestling with God? Were you trying to bend God to your will – but instead you limped away in defeat? Our nighttime wrestling matches with God often end paradoxically: when we lose, we win. When our will is defeated, we are victorious. We may not come away with a limp to prove our victory but there is evidence in our spiritual walk. 

Just as Jacob wouldn’t concede until the man blessed him, we shouldn’t give up until we hear God’s voice. He may not say what we want to hear – in fact, we wouldn’t be struggling if our will wasn’t already at odds with his – but our spiritual limp will turn into a victory march when we let him win!

Victory and power will come as we sweetly submit our wills and ways to God.*

June 4, 2025

Deuteronomy 9: 4, 5 After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here . . . because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity . . . but on account of the wickedness of these nations. (NIV)

No fall is sudden. . . . [No] man [has] been dragged over into the domain of evil, who had not strayed carelessly, or gazed curiously or lingered guiltily beside its verge.*

While I am not a proponent of the “everything happens for a reason” school of thought, I don’t doubt that some things happen for a reason. In this instance, God makes it clear that the reason for the Israelites’ victorious invasion of Canaan had nothing to do with their righteousness or integrity – they were merely an instrument of God’s judgment against the wicked Canaanites. 

In Deuteronomy chapter 20, verses 16 through 18, God lists the evil tribes and orders the Israelite army to annihilate them – “do not leave anything alive that breathes,” he said. Otherwise, “they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do . . . and you will sin against the Lord your God.” Apparently, the Israelites never complied completely with the command and, just as God predicted, they were contaminated by their association with their new neighbors. 

We might wonder how the Canaanites reached their state of ungodliness. Someone has said that there has never been a time in history in which the worship of God was not proclaimed somewhere.* I can’t verify the accuracy of his observation – at least not without some very thorough research - but it seems safe to assume that the tribes in the Promised Land had not always been Godless. (We can’t say they were godless – “little g” – because they worshipped lots of gods.) They should have been a most alarming cautionary tale to God’s chosen people, but, alas, not so much . . . 

There are three quick points I want to make from this passage. 

1. God’s reasons for blessing you might not have so much to do with you. He might bless you so that you can bless others – or he may have other, surprising, motives. 

2. Partial obedience is not really obedience. There will be a price to pay. 

3. Fraternizing with evil is not how to overcome evil. We can’t isolate ourselves from the ungodly – we’re commanded to go into the world – but God’s people are commanded to keep themselves pure. We must insulate ourselves from the enticements of the evil around us through the power of the Holy Spirit within us. 

It is impossible for God's holiness . . . to pass from us to the world. . . . The world will contaminate your holiness, if you are not on guard against it.*

June 3, 2025

Job 3: 11 “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?” (NIV)

God’s best answer to “why” is often, “Be still and know that I am God.”*

Ironically, I begin this discussion on the futility of asking “why” by asking my very own “why” question: Why do we have to know why? Sure, sometimes we need to know why something happened so that we can avoid a repetition of the incident, but more often our questions are of the why did this have to happen to me variety. If there was a reason why, and if we knew why, it wouldn’t change things. Why waste time asking why when you could be asking, “What am I going to do about it?”

Job’s question reminds us that 1) bad things happen to good people; and 2) we don’t know why. We know what was going on in the spirit realm between God and Satan because God chose to reveal it to the writer of the book of Job, but there is no indication that he ever told Job. Which brings us to the third thing that Job’s question reminds us of: 3) God doesn’t owe us answers.*

Does that seem fair to you? Do you really want God to be fair? I really want God to be God. Someone has said, “My theology is big enough for a God I can’t figure out but whom I trust, ultimately, to be deeply good.”*  I would add my personal sentiment by saying that I pray that my faith is strong enough to trust that God is good and he does good.

God’s goodness extends far beyond our understanding.*

June 2, 2025

Matthew 16: 26 “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (NIV)

What a value hath God set upon the soul! He made it after his image, he redeemed it with Christ's blood.*

I have often wondered what I would do with the world if it were mine. I’m pretty sure I don’t want it! I am puzzled by the motivation of the megalomaniac villains in movies who want to take over the world. (I realize these bad guys are fictional characters but surely they reflect someone’s fantasy.) Upon occasion, I have pondered the question, “How different would my life be if I had twice as much money?” My answer, it turns out, is, “Not much.” Perhaps, like Paul, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances (Philippians 4: 11). But Jesus poses another thought-provoking question: What can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Placing a value on a thing is not an exact science. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Antiques Roadshow, you know that saying something is worth $3,000, and actually selling it for that amount are two different things. Even the value of a soul is fluid: my soul is worth more to my mother than it is to a stranger. So what is a soul worth? Jesus established the value of our souls by giving up his place in heaven so that we could have our place there. As the Son of God, no soul was more valuable by any standard -  and yet now he and I are worth the same.

In answer to Jesus’ question: the only thing we can give in exchange for our soul is . . . our soul.

He would rather go to hell for you than to go to heaven without you.*

June 1, 2025

II Corinthians 4: 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (NIV)

Death is an affront to our emotions and reason. Death is the curse of life.*

When we get vaccinated, substances are introduced to stimulate the body’s immune system to prevent or ease the symptoms of a disease. The antigenic material in the vaccine is actually a form of the pathogen itself.* In other words, in order to fight a disease, we must carry it around in our body.

Hmmm. Sounds like Paul might have understood the concept of vaccination when he wrote about carrying around the death of Jesus in our body. The way to overcome death is to be injected with the blood of someone who overcame it himself. We come in contact with the “antibodies” of death, not through a needle, but through washing in the blood of the overcomer. “We were . . . buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6: 4)

Wikipedia shares an interesting bit of information about vaccination: “When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results.” No, those of us who have been vaccinated against death can’t spread our immunity to others by breathing on them; we can’t pass it to our children through our genetic material. But we should deliberately and diligently be spreading the good news about the cure to those who are still infected by the disease of death.

Jesus is not weak toward us, but mighty in us.*