Hall of Fame

How many important people can most of us remember? Like who won the MPV in 1998 for football, or baseball? Or who are the ten richest people in the world? Or who won Miss America in 2021? Stats lovers might, but I don’t. But ask me who made a difference in my life and I can remember those.

The first is the woman who mentored me in the early years of my Christian life. And of course my parents whose sense of humor and loving instruction never leave me. Or the aunt who let me sleepover and put me in the highest, softest bed in her home. Or the teachers at Bible school who reinforced my theology and challenged me to think and act more like Jesus. And my hubby who is an amazing example in many ways.

As author Phil Callaway says, “Standing ovations end. Applause dies down. Awards collect dust. Things we thought so important today are forgotten next week. ‘Failure,’ perhaps, could be defined as succeeding at something that doesn’t really matter.”

Every sport has a hall of fame. Musicians too, and others skilled in their line of work are in museums and art galleries, but who would be in my hall of fame? It has to be those whose lives accepted me and led me deeper into the goodness of God. 

Turning that around to what God wants from me, it is easy to see that His hall of fame is filled with people who listened to Him and in faith did what He said. Read Hebrews 11 for a good number of MVPs in the kingdom of God.

As Callaway says, success has to do with the direction we point others who follow us. From God’s hall of fame, I most often think of Moses, not so much by what he did but because of what he didn’t do:

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. (Hebrews 11:24–28)

This man refused entitlement and personal glory. He accepted being ‘one of the people’ and all that went with that, rather than wanting what he could have had as a result of the opportunities that sin would give him. He chose boldness rather than fear and obedience, rather than letting the opinion of others govern his actions.

I also think of Joshua who led the people and obeyed God’s almost laughable command. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.” (Hebrews 11:30) These two OT men, plus Isaiah and Jeremiah, have shaped my life even though they are not alive on earth today.

Yesterday we had lunch with two people whose words were a blessing. We haven’t seen them for a long time so how did they know the words they said? It can only be explained that they were listening to the Holy Spirit and He put His encouragement on their hearts.

So have some authors. Stephen Charnock has changed my life and is still doing it, more than 100 years after he died. John Piper and other contemporary Christian leaders also affect me. So do those ‘iron sharpens iron’ people in our church, sometimes with words, sometimes with actions. Our pastors are amazing and it is easy to tell them so. These actions are not about headlines or statistics, but about simply living in the power of the Holy Spirit and doing what He gives each of us to do.

PRAY: Jesus, from all this I am even more certain that to bless others, I need to listen to You, be filled with Your Spirit, and in His leading, just say and do what You put on my heart. It might not make sense to me, but You are able to use it to enhance the hall of fame in the lives of others, just as You have used others the same way to edify and encourage me. Walk by faith in the simple life of: “He has told me what is good; and what does the Lord require of me but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with my God?” (Micah 6:8)

What is justice?

 

At first it seems justice would be easy to define. Most dictionaries say it is giving a person what is due them, being fair, impartial, a moral rightness. One says justice is based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity. These terms can mean something different depending on background, culture, social norms and belief systems.

For instance, if a person kills an innocent bystander, some would say that person should be killed. That is justice. Others might say he or she deserves a fair trial, or maybe the bystander was not innocent and deserved to die. Law gets tricky and what is fair and just very often seems a matter of opinion.

Perhaps this confusion happens because truth has been relegated to personal opinion. Many assure what is true for one person is not necessarily true for others. The Bible is considered objective truth, yet many dismiss it as being true only for those who believe it. In other words, God not longer is considered the standard or truth for anything. Instead, humans decide what is true, or just and what is permissible.

Biblically, justice means: “to make right.” It is mainly a relational term — people living in right relationship with God, one another, and creation — and God determines what that ‘right relationship’ looks like. Our example and standard is Jesus Christ. He lived in right relationship with His heavenly Father and with humanity — by His obedience to His Father. For us to live justly, we need to be in a right relationship with God through faith in His Son. Then in that relationship, we also need to obey our Heavenly Father and treat others as He desires. Some examples include how we deal with those who mistreat us:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19–21)

On the other hand, if someone violates law and is guilty, the ‘repayment’ to promote order and punish the guilty has been given by God to government authorities. When private citizens take the law into their own hands, they actually usurp the authority of God. Yet even this is debated. In some countries, if an intruder threatens and their victim takes action, the victim is charged with a crime. In others, that person is applauded for defending themselves.

Justice isn’t just about crime. Micah says: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Another OT prophet says:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1:16–17)

This passage goes on to connect justice with having sins forgiven and then being obedient to God. People who are in His family are to live with consideration for barriers to human thriving and the misuse of power that exploits people’s lives. We are to repair harm and inequities. However, justice is not the same as charity and development. Instead, it is more about challenging corruption, violence and abuse of others.

Unfortunately, the Greek word dikaiosunê has been translated in many English bibles as “righteousness” and North American churches tend to limit the idea of justice to vengeance or punishment in courts and prisons, as opposed to the wider vision of challenging other sinful activities such as greed, and unfair treatment of those who are vulnerable.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)

PRAY: Jesus, justice is lacking in an overwhelming way and in every part of the world. Some are called to fight it directly, others to pray for good governments as well as Your intervention. Grant me the ability to listen and be wise in words and actions as well as in praying for justice and mercy where both are missing and most needed.

Walking with Jesus

 

Today’s devotional is about Enoch, born soon after creation and who lived a long time. His claim to fame is two-fold: he was an upright man who walked with God, and he did not die but was taken into eternity without a body left for burial.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)

Like others back then, he lived hundreds of years so that was not unusual, but walking with God describes only a few, like Noah and others who fully trusted the Lord.

I imagine a child walking with his father, holding his hand and completely trusting dad without questioning where they were going, what they were doing, or asking “are we there yet.” It is a most relaxed and carefree life, not without trials and difficulties, yet without the anxiety experienced by those who think “I can do this myself” or “I don’t need help or God.”

Enoch’s life of simple faith reminds me of this verse: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

Living this way is not complicated. Doing justice involves determining what is right and wrong and living accordingly. My three children are strong in their sense of justice. Our oldest is always the defender of the weak. The youngest stands out in the way he treats those who work for him. The middle one is a delight to be around because of her determination to see things done right and fair. All three correct me if I get off track, yet doing justice is not holding a big stick over the heads of others. Instead, it is a concern for peace and a genuine respect for people.

Loving kindness fits with God’s idea of justice. He wants us to do right because that is the best thing for us. Living righteously removes the consequences of living sinfully. It brings joy and peace. This is why God wants us to love kindness — because He does.

Walking humbly with God is not “see how good I am” but having a correct assessment of one’s own importance, acknowledging my sin, plus total dependence upon the Lord. Humility also is not self-focus — either in pride or self-pity but considering others as more important. The OT says this:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)

The NT describes humility as Jesus lived it:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:1–8)

Even though living this way is not complicated, it is challenging. The sinful old nature wants to rule even after realizing that Jesus died that I might live in the freedom and joy of walking with Him. The world and the devil continually throw junk at me.

Another part of Enoch’s life is that God took him — he did not die and require burial like almost everyone else. Many who believe in Jesus refer to this passage and link it to how He will take His people in the same way:

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)

PRAY: Whether I die or am ‘taken up’ is not a big issue. I know that You will usher me into Your presence for all eternity and in the meantime, You hold my hand so that I can walk with You.

PONDER: How can walking with Jesus make a difference to this day and to the way that I talk and treat others? How can I do justice and love kindness and mercy in greater humility? How is my attitude toward the return of Jesus and could I be more vocal about it?

 

 

God “requires” . . . yet this word has two meanings . . .

When a father says, “Can you empty the dishwasher right after supper?” the sense of his request is different from “Empty the dishwasher now!”

So it is with the word REQUIRE when it comes to the things said in God’s Word. Some of them are demands and some of them are more like requests.

The demands are connected to the Laws of God in the sense of things required as due or just. If the people want to live in a godly way, they must do these things. For instance, the first mention of something God requires is the death penalty for murder because human life is valued by Him!

Genesis 9:5–6. “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

He also demands obedience to the words He gives His prophets as said in Deuteronomy 18:18–19: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”

Another command using this word is to anyone who promises or vows something to God:

Deuteronomy 23:21. “If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.

The OT also refers to disobedience, even the thought of disobedience — such as thinking God does not do anything about it. As Psalm 10:13 says, “Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, ‘You will not call to account’? The sin may not yet show up as action, but thinking this can be the root of it. God requires otherwise.

God demanded obedience from His people in the OT, obedience to serving Him and to offering the best of what they had (see Ezekiel 20:40). He also required leaders to serve without selfish motives such as personal gain (Ezekiel 34:10–11). To all, He gives this command in Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

However, there are many passages that use another word also translated REQUIRE, a word more like asking or making a request. These verses show the heart of God and obedience to them brings His blessing. Like the child who quickly empties the dishwasher, our Father is also blessed when we do as He asks.

One OT verse with this different Hebrew word is Deuteronomy 10:12. “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” This is not a demand; no one can demand that another person loves them.

1 Kings 2:3 also requests, “Keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies (requirements), as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.” God requires obedience, both requests and demands.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. I may be over-generalizing, yet it seems to me that what God demands shows His people what is godly, necessary and proper and that we need His grace and power to do it. Doing what He requests is more about responding to Him by choice because of a loving relationship of trust and a desire to please. In Paul’s letter to Philemon, verses 8–9 may illustrated the difference. He says to Philemon, “Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you . . . .” Paul could have demanded but instead He asked his reader to choose out of a loving response.

For me, this means a request from God can indicate He could find someone else to empty the dishwasher, but if it is important that I do it, then it will come to me as a personal demand. Either way, my choice ought to be obedience.