Read The Bible Through In a Year

Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you just couldn’t (no matter how hard you tried or longed or believed) feel the presence of God?  Have you ever pondered where He is in crisis or pain?  Wondered where all the miracles are, why you don’t get to see seas parted and bodies resurrected, oil overflowing or fish and bread multiplying?  Where is the manna?  Where are the tablets carved by God’s hand?  Where are the miracles?  Where is the wonder?

A few years ago, I stumbled upon an answer that question that I am reminded of today as I check out Judges 6.  Gideon is being called by God.  In verse 13 of chapter 6 in his reluctance, Gideon asks the angel of the Lord, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened?  And where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about?”

The encounter progresses.  Gideon goes and prepares an offering for the Lord and returns to present it.  He places it on a rock, following the angel’s instructions.  The angel touched t he offering with his staff and in verse 21, the Bible says that fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and unleavened bread.  At that moment the angel vanished from his sight and Gideon was in the presence of God.

We, like Gideon, want to know why stuff happens and where the wonder is.  The wonder is in the consumption.  Several years ago I had the priviledge of hearing Louie Giglio talk about worship.  He explained how we tend to consume worship like we consume everything else.  We buy worship music, attend worship events, read articles and books and authors on worship.  We also evaluate it and categorize it.  We have become consumers of worship…worse yet, consumers of God when the intent of worship is that we ourselves would be consumed.

That’s what happened in Judges 6.  The offering Gideon prepared was consumed.  If you and I are to live our lives as sacrificial offerings before God, then our very lives are to be consumed by Him.  The wonder we long for today is in God’s faithful consumption of His people.  Maybe the reason we miss the wonder is because we miss the point.  Rather than being consumers of God…we are to be consumed by God.  As we lay our lives out on the alter, maybe God will begin dramatically consuming His people by fire and we’ll be left to wonder about the wonders no more.

The Exodus readings have really been incredible.  Exodus 1:12 reads, “But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.”

I can’t think of a verse more fitting than that to describe so many different parts of life.  It was under oppression that the sons of Jacob multiplied in Egypt.  It was under oppression that the early church thrived and spread.  Today it is under oppression that the church spreads all across Africa and Asia.  In my life, it is under pressure that I have grown and matured and become who I am today.  In January of 2004, my wife and I lost our first child to miscarriage.  The way that I pray and trust God was dramatically changed.  In January of 2007, I witnessed  first hand a breakdown in a church that caused me to step back and ask myself tough questions about who I am in ministry and who God is calling me to be.  The decisions and even sacrifices we have made since then have drawn me closer to God, to my family, and to Christian community.

In the middle of oppression, God multiplied His people.  Today, I pray that in the middle of my struggle, he would multiply my faith.  Maybe that is why James said we are to be grateful for trials.  He says that the testing of our faith produces endurance.  This is a post I started some time ago, back when Exodus 1 was the assigned reading.  For some reason, I couldn’t finish.  I couldn’t gather words to help me understand the power of that verse.  Today, I pray that I would know struggle and that in it, my own faith would strengthen, and I would learn to endure.  Maybe even in the process of it, the great oppressor would come to dread even the likes of me…of what I stand for…of who I am…for who Christ has made me…and beyond that how HE is made known in me!

The story of Exodus is the pinnacle of Israelite history.  It is the story of God’s rescue, of preserving His people, of confirming His covenant, of providing His law.  It’s full of so many fascinating miracles.  Plagues of pestilence and death, rivers turning into blood, and whole seas parting in two allowing escapees to trek on dry ground while pursuing enemies are washed away.  The story of Exodus is a powerful display of the grandness of God.

But it begins with an overlooked miracle, one we read over just to get to the good parts.

Exodus 1:7 “But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.”

Yep.  The Israelites made babies.  Lots of them.  And the miracle here is two-fold.  It’s the miracle of birth and the fulfillment of promise.  Remember that God promised Abraham to make his decendents as numerous as sand on a shore.  He repeated that promise to Isaac and began it’s fulfillment in Jacob [Israel] and his twelve sons.  Old Testament book names were born out of the first words of the book.  In some cases, the first words speak to the theme of the whole book.  Genesis literally means “in the beginning.”  Those are the first words and really describe start to finish what happened there.  Exodus means “these are the names” since Exodus starts by giving us the names of Jsacob’s sons who went to live in Egypt.  At that point, there were 70 of them.  In verse 6, Joseph and his brothers had all died and that generation was no more.  In verse 7, the land of Egypt became heavily populated with God’s people, the fulfillment of His promise.

Anybody who has experienced difficulty conceiving or the loss of a pregnancy knows the value of this promise.  Childbirth is miraculous.  Anyone who has lived to see God’s promise fulfilled in their lifetime knows the value of this miracle too.  God’s people multiplied because God made it happen.  Right there in Exodus 1:7, we get a taste of what God is always doing…working His will and fulfilling His promises.  There may be moments when life seems absent of God’s power.  Gnats aren’t always swarming and seas aren’t always parting, but God is always moving.  Exodus 1:7 gives us a simple reminder that God is always at work and that His promises always come true.

I like the hype.  The fire by night and the cloud coverage by day.  The Angel of Death, blood on lentils, and commands scripted into stone.  I like all that stuff.  But I love the ways that God is moving quietly within the scenes, using the natural laws He keeps in motion, populating the earth with His people, His promises, and His purpose.

May you experience the joy of knowing God is always, always at work.

Nic

Wading through the relationship between Jacob and Esau can be troublesome.  We wonder why God would allow the promise he made to Abraham to be passed on via lies and trickery.  Here are a few observations I made during my time with the twins.

1. In Genesis 25, something strange was happening.  Rebekah was apparently experiencing something unique during pregnancy, something other women who had carried children couldn’t explain away.  It caused her to seek answers from God.  Well, answers she got.  Genesis 25:23 says, “The LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”  God had gone against the grain and chosen the younger over the older, the weaker over the stronger.  God chose.   It stands to reason that Isaac would have been completely versed on two things in his lifetime: the promise God made to his dad (Abraham) and the prophetic word that God gave his wife (Rebekah).  Yet, in his old age, he was prepared to give both the double portion of his estate to the elder of the twins, but also his blessing.  Is Jacob’s deception justified by Isaac’s disobedience?  No.  But the plans and promises of God always outweigh the thoughts and ways of man.

2. A birthright and a blessing are not one in the same.  A birthright was an extra portion of a father’s estate.  Here’s what I learned about how that played out in the ancient world.  If the dad had 2 sons, his estate would be divided into equal thirds.  Two-thirds would go to the eldest son and one-third to the youngest son.  If a dad had 5 sons, the estate would be then divided six ways with the extra portion going to son number one.  It was an extra share of the family estate.  The blessing was a word of prophecy and promise spoken over a son before a father died.  It was a final “blessing” pronounced over the life of the son before the father passed on and could impart no more wisdom.  The blessing was actually held in higher esteem than the inheritance.

3. Esau didn’t value his birthright.  He told Jacob that he would trade him the extra portion of Isaac’s estate for a simple meal.  That was a slap in the face to his dad and to Abraham and ultimately God who provided the widespread birthright in the first place.  In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story of a son who disrespected his dad so much; he wanted his portion of the family estate before the dad even passed away.  Living in dad’s economy under his authority was no longer desirable and the son wanted out.  This son valued the inheritance but not the father who provided it.  Esau took that disrespect one step further.  Not only did he have no regard for his father, he didn’t care about his dad’s legacy either.  As the elder son, this would have been an even direr mistake. And since he didn’t value the birthright, the extra portion of Isaac’s estate, he didn’t deserve the blessing that went along with it.  When he inquires of Isaac in chapter 27 to give him a blessing also, it was too little too late.

4. Jacob didn’t get off too easy.  In a similar manner in which he did the deceiving, he was also deceived.  And out of that deception came two wives, two concubines, and 12 sons…sons that would become the 12 tribes of God’s chosen nation of Israel.  Along with the wealth and prosperity and good fortune came incessant wrestling with the things of God and paranoid fear over encountering his wronged elder brother again.  Amidst the struggle, the blessing was indeed real.  It was the blessing of being “chosen.”

Malachi means “my messenger” and the last book of the Old Testament contains a message of God to the lax people of Israel who no longer regarded the ways of God in their lives.  Malachi 1:2-3 contains a phrase that has come to divide Christians today with reference to doctrine of election.  It reads, “I have loved you,” says the LORD.  “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the LORD says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”  We have a hard time with that word, hate.  How can God hate someone?  And moreover, how could He have decided that before they were born or before the “foundations” of the world?  Malachi isn’t emphasizing hatred toward Esau, but love for Jacob.  Isaac had two sons, twin brothers, but it was by one that God chose as his special chosen people, the nation of Israel.  It was by one son, the younger, that He chose to offer his law, His word, His son, and Himself.  “You want to know how much you are loved, Israel?  I chose you.  Isaac had two sons and you were the younger and I picked you.  The older was stronger and obviously the favored, but I picked you.  You’re who I love and who I want to make covenant with.  I want to love you and fulfill promises to you and then make you the door by which the rest of the world can come to know me.”  We’re those people you know, you and I.  1 Peter calls us the chosen race.  Romans says we are adopted into this same chosen family.  It’s not that God “hates” anyone else, but that he “loves” us so much.  We’re the adopted siblings, the step-kids, the younger, weaker, not-favored ones.  Yet God in his sovereignty chose us.  Illustrating His great love for Israel, Malachi exclaims, “I picked you!  How can you question my love?”  How can we do that either…question the love of our great God.  He picked us.  He saved us.  He picked us.

Okay. So it’s a little strange going first, but here goes:

This week, one of the assigned readings was Genesis 18. It’s the story of Abraham’s encounter with the three visitors and includes his plea for Sodom. Abraham asks in verses 23-25, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people who are in it? You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Haven’t we all been there before? Standing heart in fist asking the God of the universe if he really intends to allow innocent people to suffer, pleading with Him for a response to unanswered questions about why bad things happen to good people. After the barter between Abraham and his three guests, the Lord agrees to spare the city if He finds just 10 righteous people. Surely 10 righteous people existed then and surely they do today, right? Surely in the midst of tragic circumstances, God could have found at minimum enough righteous people to spare all the pain…at least for them and their sakes, right?

Fast forward to Romans 3:10 where Paul quotes the Psalmist saying, “There is no one who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:3)

Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Easy answer, eh? There’s no such thing as good people. Our God is both sovereign and just, dishing out (rather sparingly if you think about) whatever consequences are appropriately deserved by the likes of us…the “not righteous” ones. He is completely just and none of us, no not one, deserve any better.

That’s the great thing about grace. We get to take on the righteousness of Christ. He became our sin so we could claim His perfection. We should be glad no one else out there is righteous on their own. Then, they’d get spared by their own merit and we’d be “swept way” with our guilt. If there were 50 or 45 or 20 or 10 or even one righteous, then righteousness would be possible and the curve would be completely destroyed. The fact that there is “none righteous, no not one” levels the playing field and puts us all in the same stance…in desperate need of Savior offering us an alternative. It’s good being one of the “none righteous.” It means I can excuse myself from wondering why bad things happen to good people and just enjoy the blessing of being able to take off my filthy rags righteousness and try on the cleanliness of my King.

Genesis 18. I like that story. And I like what the Psalmist wrote in 14:3. And I like that Paul quoted it to the believers in Rome. And I like that when God looks at us, He finds “none righteous, no not one” until He catches a glimpse of Christ who as enough righteousness to spare.

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