May God Be Ever in Your Favor

"May the odds be ever in your favor" is the go-to phrase from the current movie "The Hunger Games", and the irony is, of course, that the odds most definitely are not in the favor of the tributes to whom the phrase is spoken.  In the read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan that I am following, the schedule hinges on reading some from the Old Testament, some from the New Testament, and some from Psalms and Proverbs every day.  Currently I am reading in Deuteronomy chapters 29-32, where Moses lays out for the people of Israel the blessings and the curses.  The gist is:  choose God, and you will be blessed.  Turn away and disobey and you will be cursed.  And not just theoretically cursed.  Punished.  Starved.  Killed.  I've been having a hard time reconciling the seemingly harsh God of the Old Testament with the forgiving God of the New Testament.

Last night I attended a Good Friday service at Lifepoint Church .The Lord used the message I heard to help me to understand more of Who He is and what He has been doing in history.  I will apologize in advance to Pastor Eric in case my interpretation of what he said is not exactly what he meant.  The message ought to be up soon on iTunes if you would like to listen to it (iTunes - Podcasts - The Lifepoint Connection by Eric Darst).   Following is what I gleaned out of the message:

In the Old Testament, God warns His people over and over and over again that they need to obey His commands and give Him the glory.  A main theme throughout the Bible is that God will not share His glory with another.  Isaiah 42:8 says:  "I am the Lord; that is my name;  my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols."  In God's dealings with His people, He tries to woo them to Him, they reject Him, and they are punished over and over for idolatry and disobedience.  The punishment to me has seemed harsh.  Yet, in the New Testament, if anything, the consequence for rejecting God's glory (trusting in idols, disbelief, pride. . . really, all sin) appears even more cruel, for Romans 6:23 states  "For the wages of sin is death. . . ".    Christians often avoid the use of the word Hell, but Biblically speaking,  it's pretty clear that to reject God is to choose Hell, which is an eternal separation from God and an absence of all that is good and true and right.


Hell is not a fun idea.  People often say "God wouldn't do that."  Yet, the very idea that WE are saying what God will and will not do to preserve the holiness of His Name only further belittles His glory.  My objection to the curses in Deuteronomy are MY sin of thinking that surely God's glory is not that big a deal.  So the Israelites disobey.  So they turn to idols after seeing God's glory more up-close and personal than any people in history.  So they grumble and disbelieve and sin.  Can't God just overlook it?  The Bible says clearly no, though God even in the Old Testament, even after His repeated warnings and urgings and punishments, shows His people mercy.  Psalm 78 is a wonderful picture of Israel's rebellious history and God's mercy to them:

 When he killed them, they sought him;
    they repented and sought God earnestly. 
 They remembered that God was their rock,
    the Most High God their redeemer. 
 But they flattered him with their mouths;
    they lied to him with their tongues. 
 Their heart was not steadfast toward him;
    they were not faithful to his covenant. 
 Yet he, being compassionate,
     atoned for their iniquity
    and did not destroy them;
he restrained his anger often
    and did not stir up all his wrath. 
 He remembered that they were but flesh,
     a wind that passes and comes not again.
(Psalm 78: 34-39)

 Reluctantly, I have to believe that Hell is justified because God says that it is.  However, gloriously, thankfully, amazingly, Hell is not the sole response that the Lord has to the trampling of His glory.  God's compassion and love for us is so great that He provided another way.  God really did love us so much that He sent His son Jesus, to pay the price for our sin and disregard for His glory.  God Himself bore the punishment for our sin so that we could be united with Him and in relationship with Him forever.

Why did I find this so momentous that I needed to blog about it?  Isn't this basic Christian doctrine?  What is so earth-shattering?

I needed to blog about this because, though I grew up going to church and have been a Christian for a long time now, I still do not grasp the depth of God's grace and mercy toward me.  The Old Testament people deserved death for their sin.  I deserve death for my sin.  Yet God made a way so that I don't have to die.  I don't have to be separated from God for all eternity even though I have belittled and trampled upon and not even fully grasped the extent of God's glory and holiness.  He made a way for me when I could not make it myself, and He continues to love and guide me even when my understanding is so woefully lacking.  His grace is SO much bigger than I imagine, and whenever I come even a teeny bit closer to seeing it, I want to share it with everyone!

Though my thinking that God should always be "in my favor" is false, the reality that He truly does have a heart to bestow favor upon me is true.  May you see more of God's glory this Easter!

Foundations

I have been mulling over this idea for about two weeks and just now made myself sit down to blog (why be hasty?). I was priveleged to sit in on one session of Beth Moore's revised "Breaking Free" study at The Urban Refuge two Sundays ago while in Minneapolis visiting friends. Two of the Bible verses that she shared really made me think. They were from Judges 6, which begins the story of Gideon. The Midianites are oppressing Israel, and the Lord has called Gideon to defend his people. Gideon receives this call while hiding in a winepress beating out wheat. Gideon's family were Baal worshipers. After Gideon receives his call and accepts it (well, sort of), the Lord gives Gideon these instructions (Judges 6:25-26):

That night the LORD said to him, "Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order..."

The word that sparked my wonderings was the word "stronghold". The word simply means a refuge or a place of security and survival. The Lord often describes Himself as our stronghold (Psalm 9:9, Psalm 18:2, and Psalm 27:1). However, the word can also be used negatively to refer to something that we use as a refuge instead of God--drugs, alcohol, TV, friends, anything. In the context of the "Breaking Free" study, strongholds are usually a bad thing.

One attribute of God that I love and am grateful for is how He can redeem our sin. He directs Gideon to tear down the stronghold of idol worship in his family and then commands him to build an altar to the Lord on top of the very place where such grievous sin occurred. Possibly Gideon used the very wood of the Asherah pole to burn the sacrifice. Similarly, in Beth Moore's life, the stronghold of abuse/sin that was so harmful to her is now the very same platform from which she shares the amazing work of God in her life. On top of idolatry, God built an altar for His glory.

I think the Lord wants to do the same thing in my life and in the lives of all believers. Where we have built altars to self or pride or money or fear or ___________, He wants to demolish the sin and right on top of that shame and ugliness, display His beauty. Wow.

To Glorify God

The verse I'm thinking about today did not come from my regular reading, but from the Faithwalkers devotional for today, by Daniel Goering (Great Commission pastor in Germany). For the past few days, Daniel had been writing about how, since Jesus is no longer a physical presence on the earth, WE are the light of God in the world. Today, the verse he focused on was Matthew 5:16:

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Daniel pointed out that if we live a life full of selfless good works, but don't communicate why we are doing them, or where our motivation and power come from, then we won't be glorifying God, but ourselves. Yikes. As I get ready to go on this trip to Ethiopia with Compassion International, people say to me "Wow, that's so good of you." I don't know how to respond to that, exactly, because the Bible says that any good thing in me is from Jesus, but how do I share that in a way that doesn't sound completely self-righteous?

In reading the Old Testament, God over and over again states that He will not share His glory with anyone. I don't want to inadvertently "steal" any little part of God's glory, and I do want to be faithful to communicate that it's God in me that motivates any service or good work.

I am definitely going to be thinking about how to do both parts of the verse--the good works and the glorifying of the Lord. It will also be my new memory verse. Any ideas on how to practically communicate in this situation?