Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....October 29, 2018
When life gets rough...what then?
Meeting Challenges God’s Way
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. -Heb 11:30
In last weeks Reflections, we met the people of God as they marched out of slavery toward the Promised Land. We observed that early on God led them into a situation with Egypt’s army behind them and the Red Sea in front of them. What a dilemma! They trusted God in the impossible situation and crossed over on dry land. Additionally they watched as the pursuing army was destroyed by the power of the Lord. This was an astounding turn of events. In a matter of hours they went from being chased and threatened to complete freedom.
With an experience like that, you would have thought their faith would be unshakeable, but it wasn’t. In a year or so, the Israelites stood at the borders of the Promised Land, having received the Law of God and readied for conquest. Then their faith faltered-- again! They sent 12 explorers into the land to bring back a report. The men came back with stories of abundant food and a pleasant land, but 10 of the men also exaggerated the strength of the Canaanite people.
“We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size . . . We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” -Numbers 13:31-33
In response to this report, the people rebelled against God and refused to enter the land of Canaan. God sentenced them to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, saying that their children would be the ones to actually enter the Promised Land. Our text this week brings us ahead to the end of that wandering with a new generation once again at the entrance to Canaan. Standing in the way was a walled city, a strong fortress that guarded the region. How would they conquer this fortress city?
The writer of Hebrews in his sermon on faith alludes to one of the most dramatic miracle stories in the Bible. It is an account that captures our imagination and it instructs us still today about the kind of faith necessary to live successfully for God. How this story effects your life depends largely on how you read it. If you rationalize away what happened and turn it into a legend or myth the power of the story is lost. IF you will, by faith, read it as an account of God’s power at work on behalf of His people, this story can become a foundation for your faith.
For the Believer, this strange story of an ancient battle becomes a model of living successfully for God in our own time. As we prepare to enter into the places that God has prepared and promised to us:
– places of holiness in our lives,
– places where peace conquers hatred,
– places where family life flourishes in a culture that degrades families,
– places where sin is defeated by righteousness . . . We will face fortresses like Jericho.
Blocking the road to holiness can be some huge sinful habit that resists all of our efforts to conquer it.
∙ The way to peace can be sealed off by a deep, unyielding hatred of someone who wronged us.
∙ Our family’s security in Christ can be threatened by old patterns of dysfunctions that seem to follow from one generation to the next.
∙ Our life’s hope to honor Jesus in our daily conduct can be held back by a huge stronghold of selfishness.
Whatever YOUR Jericho that keeps you from being the person of God in the place promised to you by God, this message is for you. It is a simple, yet profound challenge to faith.
Principle # 1 - God’s strategy for battle is often strange, defying all conventional wisdom.
Joshua was an old, experienced leader. Certainly he and his advisers had spent countless hours working out a plan of conquest as they entered the land. But all of Joshua’s plans were set aside by an encounter with a messenger from the Lord. The capture of the city of Jericho was already declared by God.
Then the weird battle plan was laid out. “Take the army of Israel, led by priests carrying trumpets, and march around the city once a day for 6 days, then 7 times on the 7th day! At the end of the march, have the priests blow their horns, the people shout, and the walls will fall down.”
Imagine being the leader of the nation and coming back to your council with these instructions. They possibly thought Joshua had spent too much time in the hot sun! This was an idiotic plan, totally impractical, pointless and frustrating for the people.
Why did God direct such an odd campaign? He wanted this generation of Israelites to trust Him just as He had desired the trust of their fathers. The Israelites probably could have conquered Jericho using normal battle tactics. They would have laid siege to the city for months until it had exhausted its supplies, then the walls would have been scaled, and the city overrun. There would have been a substantial loss of life and a significant time delay. Most importantly to God, the people would not have understood the necessity of trusting in Him.
There are several incidents of battle recorded in the Bible where God directed a strange campaign.
∙ Gideon was directed to reduce his army from 32,000 to 300 then to attack in the night with lamps hidden
inside of water pitchers. At the moment of attack, the soldiers were to yell, break their pitchers and hold up their lamps causing their enemy to be routed in confusion. It was a weird plan but because God commanded it...and it worked.
∙ David, a young teenage boy who wrote songs and took care of sheep, showed up at a state mated conflict with the Philistines and God sent him out to fight a giant of man, a seasoned warrior, with a slingshot! And God directed that boy’s aim so that the champion was felled. David’s response? He gave the honor to God.
∙ In the war for our souls, where God and Satan battled for our destiny, God sent His Son . . . not with a million angels to march against the demons of darkness . . . to a Cross alongside a Jerusalem highway. Jesus died and bought victory for us with love!
∙ God launched his campaign to save the world from sin using 12 men from a remote province of the Roman Empire. They were an assorted lot of losers and misfits with not a nobleman or a rich man in their midst. But because they were God’s men doing His work in His way, they changed the Empire in just 30 years time and the world for all time! Paul summed up their work this way:
22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. -1 Corinthians 1:22-25
God’s strategy for battle is often strange, defying all conventional wisdom.
What is the battle plan of God to conquer your ‘Jericho?’
Are you willing to let Him lead, to let Him set out the strategy?
Hear this word. Meditate on it. When you are wondering if YOUR strategy will work . . . consider it.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. -2 Corinthians 10:3-4
In so doing, we will learn that the word of Zechariah 4:6 ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, ‘– is more than a slogan.
The truest worship of God is obedience. He demands it!!
A thread of obedience runs through this entire story.
∙ When Joshua first met the angelic messenger, he heard his words and OBEYED.
∙ When the priests were given their strange orders to march in front of the army in God’s name, they OBEYED.
∙ When the army was told to follow the priests and to march in silence for seven days, THEY OBEYED.
∙ When the people were told to give the city and its wealth exclusively to God, THEY OBEYED . . . with one exception, which proved to be a fatal choice.
We make a terrible mistake when we think that worship is only the offering up of words, songs, or money to God in hope of purchasing His favor! God cannot be convinced of our worthiness of His love and it offends Him if we attempt such a thing. In fact, we may sing and pray with words we do not mean. God lamented this hypocrisy of people saying...
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. 14 Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” – Isaiah 29
The people of Israel worshiped God in acts of obedience. It is not hard to imagine how foolish they might have felt marching around the city every morning. Likely after a couple of days of this strange sight, the formerly terrified inhabitants of Jericho began to be emboldened. They may have stood on the city walls sneering at this strange army that just walked in silence. How hard obedience must have been. But the obedience of Israel was powerful worship that invited the hand of God to operate on their behalf.
The truest worship of God is obedience.
– In our time, the will of God may seem just as strange and obedience just as difficult.
– Are you challenged financially? Have you obeyed God with your tithe, 10% of your income?
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? When I need more, I give some away. But it is God’s strategy.
– Are you being taken advantage of by someone? Obey God and turn the other cheek, go the second
mile.
This too, sound ridiculous. Who will stand for me if I don’t push back? God’s strategy is peace.
If you are facing a stronghold that seems overwhelming and unyielding, begin with worship, true worship of total submission to God’s will, then watch with wonder as He works His mighty acts.
Remember this: God seldom shows us more of His plans until we are submitted to the part we already know! Obey Him. And if you are unwilling to obey Him, don’t insult the Almighty by trying to buy His favor with gifts or empty words.
The key to obedience is FAITH!
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. -Hebrews 11:6
God wants us to practice patience as He works His plans in our lives.
As Joshua led the Israelites on the first day’s march it might have been interesting. The second day’s march might have been acceptable. By the third day, it was hard to get up in the morning and get ready to walk around the city. But they endured and patiently did what God directed.
Are you ready to patiently keep on doing what is right even when it seems that nothing is happening.... anywhere? I want immediate solutions, don’t you? One prayer and I want an answer. One day and I want victory. But God timing is seldom remotely related to our timing.
We know that God could have toppled the walls of Jericho on the first day that the people marched. But time was needed to change their attitude. I believe that He wanted them to see the challenge, grapple with it, and understand just how great His power was in changing the situation for them. Walking for 7 days tested their faith, but it also grew their patient endurance.
This ancient story is a lesson for us all!
Principle # 1 - God’s strategy for battle is often strange, defying all conventional wisdom.
Principle # 2 - The truest worship of God is obedience.
Principle # 3 - God wants us to practice patience as He works His plans in our lives.
Use the Jericho strategy when you’re confronted with a huge challenge, a problem that defies solution, a situation that won’t easily be turned around.
1. Write the problem down and walk around it for seven days. (Not literally, but considering it and pondering it.
2. Bring the Presence of God to the problem. That is what Israel did. The Ark of God was the symbol of God’s Presence with them and they carried it around the city each day. Pray faithfully over the problem, not even suggesting solutions but simply bringing God’s presence to it.
3. Anticipate victory in faith. The Israelites kept silent, but the priests’ trumpets blasted as they marched. Trumpets were a way of announcing victory. Thank God that even though you don’t have the answer in hand yet, He already knows what to do. Thank Him -- in advance -- for the victory, whatever it may be. You’ll find your attitude changing, your faith growing.
And it amazing how so many of our problems are solved when our attitude changes. When despair gives way to hope, when doubt gives way to faith – we are ready to see the victory of the Lord.
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
Heaven Scent......Smell the Rain.......
A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.
That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs.
"I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one."
Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk. She would never talk. She would probably be blind. She would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation. And on and on.
"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.
Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.
"David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements," Diana remembers "I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen. I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say Danae is not going to die!
One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"
As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was sentially "raw," every lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultra-violet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.
There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.
At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later-though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any mental or physical impairments. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more-but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.
One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent.
Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?". Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain."
Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."
Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.
During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest, and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
As we continue our look at the Books of the Bible...this week we study the Book of Job...
Who wrote the book?
The author of the book of Job is unknown. Several suggestions have been put forth as plausible authors: Job himself, who could have best recalled his own words; Elihu, the fourth friend who spoke toward the end of the story; various biblical writers and leaders; or many editors who compiled the material over the years. While there is no definitive answer, it was most likely an eyewitness who recorded the detailed and lengthy conversations found in the book. In Old Testament times, authors sometimes referred to themselves in the third person, so Job’s authorship is a strong possibility.
Who was Job?
This wealthy landowner and father is one of the best-known biblical heroes. But we know little more than that he was stripped of everything, without warning, and that his faith was severely tested.
Where are we?
Though the text does not directly identify its setting, internal clues indicate that Job lived during the time of the patriarchs, approximately 2100 to 1900 BC. According to Job 42:16, Job lived an additional 140 years after his tragedies occurred, perhaps to around 210 years total. His long lifespan generally corresponds to that of Terah (Abraham’s father), Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Also, Job’s wealth was measured in livestock (Job 1:3; 42:12), as was Abraham’s (Genesis 12:16). Like the patriarchs, Job used God’s unique title “El Shaddai” (God Almighty). The book of Job does not mention the Mosaic Law; indeed, Job’s daughters were equal heirs with his sons, and Job himself, though not a priest, offered sacrifices—things not possible under the Law (Leviticus 4:10; Numbers 27:8). Though we cannot be certain, Job may have lived during the time of Jacob or shortly thereafter.
Job lived in the land of Uz (Job 1:1), but no one really knows where Uz was located. Scholars believe it was outside of Canaan, near the desert because “the customs, vocabulary, and references to geography and natural history relate to northern Arabia.”
Why is Job so important?
The Israelites categorized Job within their wisdom literature. The book includes language from ancient legal proceedings, laments, and unique terms not found elsewhere in the Bible. In addition, the majority of Job is written in parallel lines which are indicative of poetry.
The book delves into issues near to the heart of every human who experiences suffering. The prologue provides a fascinating peek into the back story—why God allowed Satan to afflict Job with such pain and turmoil. Then, through a series of dialogues and monologues arranged in a pattern of threes, human wisdom attempts to explain the unexplainable, until finally God Himself speaks.
The final chapters of Job record God’s masterful defense of His majesty and unique “otherness”—of God’s eternal transcendence above creation—in contrast with Job’s humble and ignorant mortality. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4).
What's the big idea?
Job’s plight of undeserved suffering compels us to ask the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The answer given to Job may or may not satisfy the reader. God allows pain for good reason, but He may never reveal those reasons.
Job did not reject God, but Job did challenge and accuse Him. The Almighty quieted Job decisively when He finally thundered His own perspective on the situation. God did not answer Job’s question of “Why?”—He instead overwhelmed Job and his friends with the truth of His majesty and sovereignty. Job came away with a deeper sense of God’s power and splendor, trusting Him more:
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You;
Therefore I retract,
And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5–6)
How do I apply this?
Pain inevitably afflicts each one of us. Suffering is unavoidable in this life. Will your relationship with God be enough when trials come? Will you trust Him through your suffering? Read Job 38–42. Spend time with the Almighty. Pray for a stronger faith in the powerful Creator described in those chapters. Pray for a right perspective of Him so that you might see your situation through His eyes.
Instead of asking where God is in the midst of your pain, the book of Job affirms God’s control and asks us, “Where are we in our pain? Are we trusting our Creator, even though we cannot understand our circumstances?”
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou