13 posts tagged “quiet time”
6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!
He himself has torn us to pieces,
but he will heal us!
He has injured us,
but he will bandage our wounds!
6:2 He will restore us in a very short time;
he will heal us in a little while,
so that we may live in his presence.
6:3 So let us acknowledge him!
Let us seek to acknowledge the Lord!
He will come to our rescue as certainly as the appearance of the dawn,
as certainly as the winter rain comes,
as certainly as the spring rain that waters the land.”
I always have loved the oldie GC song "So Let Us Know", but so often I forget that it is based on this passage which is actually about Israel's false repentance. The prayer here is based on the fact that Israel is taking God's restoration for granted, that it is automatic, like rain in the springtime, which comes without me lifting a finger. Basically Israel is saying "Our relationship with God is like the seasons...don't worry, spring rains always come, and so will God." The prayer is completely devoid of any acknowledgment of sin.
Well here's God's response to Israel's unrepentant prayer:
What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, O Judah?
For your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist;
it disappears as quickly as dawn’s dew!
6:5 Therefore, I will certainly cut you into pieces at the hands of the prophets;
I will certainly kill you in fulfillment of my oracles of judgment;
for my judgment will come forth like the light of the dawn.
God here takes out some of his own Nature metaphors and uses them to describe Israel's unfaithfulness. I detect some definite sarcasm undertones here... :)
I wonder whether sometimes I don't have the same attitude of complacency toward my relationship with God as Israel did. This complacency would come because I have the same lack of fear and the same "take-it-for-granted" attitude toward God's forgiveness and grace.
From today's daily reading:
16:11 You lead me in the path of life;
This reminds me of Piper's "Christian hedonism" idea which has really struck me lately. So often we think our joy or our delight are to be denied in order for us to truly please God. Verses like these and others point to the opposite: We please God most WHEN we find utter joy and delight...why? Because utter joy and delight can ONLY be found in Him. See the incredible "You ALWAYS give me sheer delight"? This doesn't mean we're always happy, happy, happy, but instead that when we come to God, God is Himself our inner delight, therefore, seeking delight (in Him) as our highest aim is a noble goal.
See C.S. Lewis on this, I find this one of the greatest things I've ever read by him:
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
- The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis
This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
Nehemiah 8:10b
Why were they not to grieve? Because the "joy of the LORD is your strength". As soon as you lose the joy in who God is, and in what the LORD has done, you lose your strength, your will to fight, your motivation.
How do I regain this fresh, motivated joy?
What are these fire blankets between
Your Spirit's fire within
And my heart?
Of what essence are they?
Are they of my doing,
Or of my lack of doing?
Could they, might they be
Flammable?And what are these windbreakers between
Your Spirit's wind
And my heart?
Of what essence are they?
Are they of my doing?
Or of my lack of doing?
Could they, might they be
Blown away?Holy Fire, do not let Yourself be quenched.
Wind of God, do not let Yourself be tamed.I long for the day when
Your wind once again fans Your flame.
I've always loved Josiah. At 16 years old Chronicles describes him as starting to seek the Lord. But what struck me today was the following verse:
In the eighteenth year of his reign, he continued his policy of purifying the land and the temple.
2 Chronicles 34:8
Naturally, the lives of the kings described in Chronicles, and their struggle with defeating idolatry in their land, "purifying" their land, etc., all has a strong symbolic character (not to take away from the history): The author of Chronicles seems to be prodding us: Are we as diligent of "cleaning house" in our own lives as these kings were in their country?
The last few years have been one adjustment after another for me personally. Am I willing to "continue my policy" of living for Christ, purifying anything he points out in my life, walking in love and holiness, making sacrifices, tearing down idols in my life and "tossing aside anything that hinders"? Am I willing to be that man?
I will not offer to the Lord what belongs to you or offer a burnt sacrifice that cost me nothing.
1 Chronicles 21:24
The background here is that because of David's pride, a major plague is going on throughout the land. A prophet tells David he needs to bring a sacrifice to God so the plague will stop. David finds the next best piece of land and asks to buy it so that he can build an altar on it. The owner of the land David offers the land for free.
At this point, if I was David, I'd be "Great, the quicker I can build the altar and get this sacrifice thing over with, the quicker the plague will stop." But David's heart is far deeper: He values the sacrifice more than stopping the plague right away. He refuses to make a sacrifice which costs him nothing, even though and because more effort (not to mention more of his money) is involved.
Nathan said to David, “You should do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you.”
1 Chronicles 17:2
But the security Nathan gives David here speaks to my heart on how God desires us to make our own decisions when we're connected to him. He doesn't expect us to keep running to him for every last detail. Of course this doesn't mean we DON'T seek him for his will, especially when we're talking about big things. But it does mean we can relax a little.
Oh, and an encore from this chapter:
I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you!
1 Chronicles 17:10
God's grace is so huge, it completely overwhelms David. In his response to God, he uses the emotional and thankful "O, God!" or "O, Lord!" a whopping 9 times!
I've decided to do like my wife and journal my QT on here, trying to do it every day. We both have these journals in our RSS feed readers, so we can keep each other accountable. Kind of cool.
So they marched against Baal Perazim and David defeated them there. David said, “Using me as his instrument, God has burst out against my enemies like water bursts out.” So that place is called Baal Perazim (which means Master of the Breakthrough).
1 Chronicles 14:11
This really encourages me, for a couple of reasons:
- God burst out not on his own, but "by David's hand"
- Part of who God IS is that He is the One who breaks through barriers, breaks out against His enemies. Breaking through in my life, in my family, at my work, in my church, in my city, in my country, all that is a part not only of what He'd like to DO, but who He actually IS.
- God is not only One who breaks through, He is the Master of the breakthrough.
I was struck today in my daily reading how bluntly the various tribes of Israel basically get their "report card" on how they did in conquering the land, sorted by success. Judah and Simeon (especially Judah) pass with flying colors (verses 1-31). Then comes Benjamin, Joseph, and Manasseh who didn't completely conquer everybody, but did an "OK" job, then everybody else gets the resounding and repetitive "...did not conquer", one after the other. The worst of the lot is Dan who not only doesn't conquer the land, but in fact is forced to live in the hill country. Ouch!
What set apart Judah and Simeon from the rest, why were they different? A couple thoughts off the top of my head:
- They worked together - Judah basically said "Simeon, you help me, we'll help you." Unity begets success. (Genesis 11:5)
- They sought God's help and guidance right from the start (verse 1): Note that this is one of the very few times we see Israel asking the LORD anything in the whole book of Judges (other than at the end of the book).
- They were passionate - conquering a city in order to marry Caleb's daughter sounds like 1. Caleb's daughter must have been quite a girl ;) and 2. Caleb passionately valued the agreement with God to take the land, as we already heard in the book of Joshua.
During my vacation last week I was reading in Exodus 3 and was struck by the way God introduces himself to Moses at the burning bush. After telling him to take off his shoes, all he says is:
"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Exodus 3:6a)
What's incredible to me is that God defines himself for Moses simply by referring to people who believe in him. He doesn't say "I'm the God who did ____" or "I'm the Creator of heaven and earth" or anything like that.
Rather, he first of all (and this really caught my attention) says: "I'm your Dad's God." Then to top it off he says "I'm also Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's God." And this is more than enough for Moses, the second part of the verse is:
"At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God." (Exodus 3:6b)
I thought about two things here:
1. Am I the kind of person that reflects God well enough that when people think about my God, they are filled with awe? Am I the kind of dad that when my children grow up, all they need to hear about God to make God attractive for them is that He is their dad's God. I know that was like that for me with my dad, and I so desire it to be like that for me and my kids.
2. God is so humble - he clearly wears the fact that these four individuals believe in Him like a badge on his chest. He names Himself using their names to do it, introduces Himself using their names. His relationship with them is the first thing about Himself He wants to reveal to Moses. In this life, we will never stop underestimating the intensity of God's love for us, and this was one of the moments I realized that.
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
