Tag: God

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10 Tips for Applying the Book of Judges to Your Life

Out of all the books in the Bible, the book of Judges may be harder for modern ears to hear than any other. Between kidnapping brides, guts spilling out, tent pegs in skulls, and sending body parts to the various parts of Israel, there’s enough crazy stuff in there to make even the most experienced moviegoer wince. So, what to do with this book? In spite of all the gore and war, there is much to learn here to enable us to live well with God and fellow human beings.

We might not like to talk about it, but there is still plenty of violence and messiness along the lines of the book of Judges in the modern world. Then as now, we find God right in the middle of it. Jesus was not born into a sanitized world but a world filled with such things. When God comes down, He enters into a world filled with evil and problems in order to bring it to a better place and in order to bring us to a etter place. If we look at things from that perspective, we can learn much from the book of Judges.

Here are ten tips for applying this ancient book to your life. If you wish, you can listen to my recent sermon where I took this approach. Listen to it here.

1. God’s wrath is rooted in His love for people. There is no question that God gets angry in the book of Judges. No way around it. Other cultures may struggle with the love and forgiveness of God, but ours is one that struggles with the wrath of God. At the same time, would we really want a God that did not care how humans lived or what injustices they committed? God is passionate against evil because He wants humans to do what is truly good for them and what is best for them is to live in harmonious fellowship with Himself and with other human beings. When you see the wrath of God in the book of Judges remember that it is rooted in God’s passion for people to live in the good way He created them to live.

2. God’s wrath is rooted in His love for His Son. The book of Judges is Trinitarian. The whole Bible is really about revealing the Son of God who ultimately comes in human form in the gift of Christmas. But Jesus was present and existed before He ever became a human. In the book of Judges, one way we see Jesus is as the angel of the Lord (Judges 2, Judges 6, Judges 13). This angel of the Lord speaks to the people of Israel and says that He is the one who brought them out of Egypt. He identifies as Jehovah, the Lord, and yet he is also in some ways distinct from Jehovah. It is the relationship of the eternal Father with His Son. The Father has such supreme delight in His Son that when people don’t listen to Him, it grieves Him and angers Him (see Psalm 2 for a framework for this).

3. Every generation faces its test. Judges is a book of multiple generations. There is a part of us that wants smooth sailing for our children and grandchildren, but that’s not going to be the way things work out. Each generation has to face the hard facts of reality and decide how it will live in light of them. It has to decide whether to rely on the Lord and seek the way of the people around them. This is true for our generation, and it will be true for the next generation. In Judges, each new generation faces its own challenge and has to work through things in order to come to the right place. Generally, that’s how it works, and this book is a great reminder of that. The more we can tell our children that they will have to face challenges, the better we will be able to equip and prepare them for that test.

4. Passing on the faith is a challenge. It’s easy to assume that our children will just “get” what we teach them. They do imitate us to a great degree. However, passing on our faith requires conscious effort. The generation that came out of the wilderness served the Lord, but “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). They lived for the Lord but did not talk about Him nearly enough to the next generation. We should prepare the next generation for the tests they will face and make sure they know what God has done in the past.

5. God is full of compassion. One amazing thing about Judges is how compassionate God is. In spite of the way people ignore Him and do exactly what He tells them not to, when they are in trouble, He is always ready to help them. Judges 10 is a poignant example. The people cry out to Him, and He says that He is not going to help them anymore. The people keep crying out to Him and say, “We don’t believe you! You will help us!” Then, it says that God became impatient with His people’s misery, i.e., could not bear it any longer (10:16). Then, He acted.

6. God will hear us when we cry out to Him. That should encourage us to cry out to the Lord when we are in misery. Whatever we are struggling with, we should cry out to Him about it. “But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel . . .” (Judges 3:9). Ask, and you will receive. When there is deep hurt, pain, or struggle, it is time to cry out to the Lord, and He will hear you and help you. Does He not act right away? Keep crying out. He hears and in the right time will act.

7. God delights to use His people for big things. In Judges 3:9 (just cited in #6), it notes that when the people cried out to the Lord, He raised up a deliverer. He did not just destroy their enemies. He didn’t just confound them by miracles or mighty acts. He raised up a leader, Othniel. That’s what God likes to do. In Judges and throughout the Bible, God delights to use His people to do great things. He delights to use you!

8. God uses many leaders to point to the greatest leader, Jesus. One reason God the Father loves to raise up leaders is because He is always thinking about the greatest leader, His Son, our Lord Jesus. All of the leaders that God raises up point to this one great leader who is the great Judge and Savior of the world, the Savior from Satan, sin, and death. God sends hundreds of leaders in the Bible to point to Him, and each one teaches us a little bit about the Son whom the Father delights in and wants to honor as the greatest leader the world has ever known, the conqueror of all evil.

9. God’s Spirit empowers us for service. In Judges, we see not only the presence of the Father and the Son but also the Holy Spirit. When Othniel led the people of Israel to freedom against Cushan-Rishathaim of Mesopotamia, the Spirit of God came upon Othniel. That’s how He was made a leader. When God calls us to His service, He not only gives us the command but the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to serve Him and do great things for His name.

10. God is faithful to keep blessing His people in spite of what they deserve. God is faithful. He keeps doing good in spite of what His people deserve. He doesn’t give up on them. He keeps working with them, calling them, and leading them. God just keeps working with His people. That should encourage us when we fail, make mistakes, and sin. God keeps coming back with His relentless love to bring salvation and blessing to the world, and especially His people.

This should give you some ideas for thinking of how to apply this ancient book to the modern world. Have different thoughts or ideas about this? I’d love to read them in the comments below. Thanks for taking the time to read my site. If you liked this post, you can sign up to the right (laptop) or by scrolling down (mobile). I hope to see you hear again.

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Why Should I Rejoice in My Suffering?

In Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, he says that “we rejoice in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3). How can we possibly rejoice in the midst of death, job loss, rejection, sickness, or betrayal? Note very carefully. He does not say, “rejoice in spite of our sufferings.” He says, “rejoice in our sufferings.” It would seem that this is the last thing we can rejoice in. What could he mean by this crazy statement?

What he does not mean is that suffering itself is good. It’s not good to be hit in the jaw, get in a car wreck, or lose a friend. There has to be something else that is added to the suffering that would make us rejoice in it. In other words, suffering can be used for some purpose that would make it good for us.

Let’s take being hit in the jaw. If we were training for a boxing match, getting hit in the jaw might help us see a weakness in our defenses we might not have seen otherwise. Getting in a car wreck might lead us to a lifetime of more careful driving. Losing a friend may have been the loss of an unhelpful friendship. It also may have gotten us out of our shell in a way that opened up new possibilities and friendships that made us grow. Most of us have had experiences like this.

So, what is the good connected to suffering that Paul has in mind? The answer is found in the words “we rejoice in the glory of God.” This does not mean that we rejoice because we will see or experience God’s glory, even though we will. It means we rejoice that we will be made like God, i.e., we will have a character that reflects His good, loving, and just character. Continue reading “Why Should I Rejoice in My Suffering?”

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5 Reasons to Work Harder on Becoming a Loving Person

Loving people in this world can be hard (see 5 Reasons Why It Is Hard to Love). We see things from our own perspective. Other people see things from theirs. This brings us into conflict with them. This inflicts wounds upon us. Why put in the work of becoming a loving person when it is often so hard to love?

There are plenty of reasons. The Christian faith offers us many motivations and reasons to work on becoming a loving person. In some ways, this is what the Christian faith is all about, helping us become loving people instead of selfish ones.

What are the reasons the Christian faith offers to work on it? The Apostle Paul wrote his famous “love” chapter in 1 Corinthians 13, but I think Romans 12 offers more insight into love, though it is less elegant. I want to look at the motivations that he offers there.

Reason #1: The love of God for us. When Paul tells us that we should love others, he begins with the love and mercy of God. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God . . .” (Romans 12:1). If we have trouble loving, we should not first try harder. We should take a plunge into the infinite ocean of the love of God.

When we consider how little thought we have given to God and how much He has blessed us, it will motivate us to love. If God loved us, we also ought to love one another. God sought us out when we were going astray and didn’t even want to come back. How, then, can we not imitate our heavenly Father and show love?

Reason # 2: We are made for each other. We are not made to exist alone. We are social beings. We are made to work together and live together. When we don’t, we are living contrary to our nature. “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5).

Paul speaks here of the body of Christ, but the same is true of humans in general. This is recognized more broadly in the Bible, but others have used the same metaphor. The Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away” (Meditations, 2.1). We are made to love. To not love is to act against what we were created to be.

Reason #3: Being a jerk is terrible. This goes back to Romans 1: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy” (29—31). Living this way is terrible. So, why would we let the world drag us down to this level? If someone wants to be a jerk, they harm themselves. We should not let them harm us by turning us into jerks. We should learn to love, which is excellent and beautiful.

Reason #4: The judgment of God. Christianity does not say that revenge is wrong. It just says that we are not competent or authorized to carry it out. We leave it to God. When we let go of wrongs and learn to love, even when it’s hard, we are not saying that wrong is not wrong. We are saying that we trust God to sort everything out and deal with other people. “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). We can release ourselves to love because we can be confident that God will deal with everything in a satisfying way.

Reason #5: It is effective. Love conquers. That’s why the Apostle Paul said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). When we can respond with love when others don’t, it can shine a light that dispels the darkness. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a great example. He sought to bring whites and blacks together, but he also said that the injustice of the white community was wrong. He used non-violence to protest while not turning away from a relationship with them. The result was a radical transformation of our society. That’s what bold love can do (to use the words of Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III, whose book I highly recommend).

These are the central reasons in the book of Romans for working harder on becoming loving people. I hope that you feel encouraged to work on developing one of the most excellent virtues that you can have. You’re not in it alone, God stands behind you becoming a loving person! He’s for it. He is all in. That’s why He gives us so many reasons to pursue it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I hope it was a blessing. If you liked it, please share or subscribe below. I hope to see you here again soon!

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God Planned Better: What My New Colombian Family Taught Me About Travel

“[You say] ‘Heaven decreed it otherwise!’, rather . . . adopt a phrase which is braver and nearer the truth . . . “Heaven decreed better!” (Seneca, Letter XCVIII).

Travel doesn’t always work out how you planned. My plan was to travel from Ibague, Colombia to Medellin to Cartagena and then to our home in Tennessee. So, on Monday, April 3, my wife, three of my daughters, and my new son-in-law took two Ubers to the Ibague airport to fly to Medellin.

When we arrived at the Ibague airport, there were maybe three people there. There was no one at the ticket counter. It was like Night of the Living Dead minus the zombies.

After a few minutes, someone showed up at the ticket counter. I went up to talk to them. I showed them my tickets. He said, “These tickets are not from Ibague. They are from Bogota.” Bogota was 120 miles through the mountains away. There, in Bogota, the flight we paid for would leave in a mere two hours. I had bought the wrong ticket!

I stopped and thought. What was I going to do? We had to get to Cartagena, and we had to get to Medellin to fly to Cartagena. What to do? The only solution I could come up with was to fly directly to Cartagena the next day. I purchased six tickets for $100 a piece for the next day from Ibague (this time for sure!) to Cartagena. A friend of my son-in-law’s family had rented a three bedroom apartment and only needed one room, so she invited us to stay with her. $600 poorer, we went back to Ibague, but we had lodging and a way home.

The Family
So, we rejoined my son-in-law’s family. They all felt bad about what had happened. But their perspective on these events was interesting. They said, “Sometimes God’s plans are different than ours. But God’s plans are better.” “We don’t always understand what God is doing, but His will is always better.” “I’m so sorry, but we know that God has a plan that is better and wiser than ours.” It was rather remarkable. It was surprising how many of them had understood and imbibed this basic idea: we make our plans, but God’s plans supersede ours. And . . . God’s plans are better.

The good thing about staying in Ibague is that we got to spend time with our new Colombian family to whom we were connected by my daughter’s recent marriage to a Colombian man. We had really enjoyed getting to know this family, and we were thankful for this opportunity.

To the Mountains
Since they all had taken the day off and had family in town, they did what they always did on these occasions. They went away to the mountains and the small towns that dotted them, and they took our family with them.

The first place we went was the Mirador de Juntas. This was a lookout platform a short ways up the mountain with a view of the surrounding mountains and valley below. It was breathtaking.

Then, we went back toward Ibague. We visited the picturesque pueblo or small town of Villa Restrepo. When Colombians think of vacations, they think of going to the pueblos. Often, they have family there. On the weekends and holidays, the cities empty out, and people return to the pueblos or visit new ones. Villa Restrepo was a great example of it.

There, in Villa Restrepo, we sampled local sweets and coffee with raw dark sugar. We enjoyed the varied architecture of the buildings in town and the scenery of the mountains around it. But the best was yet to come. We were going to ride horses to the tallest waterfall in the state or province of Tolima, Cascada La Plata, the silver waterfall.

Horseback Riding
We arrived at the home that would provide the horses and guides for us to ride to the waterfall. We had an inauspicious start. A cute little pug was walking up the road with his master. Suddenly, we heard a howl and the scuffle of dogs fighting. A pitbull-like dog had sunk its teeth into the neck of the pug. My son-in-law’s father went over and put the attacker in a chokehold, and his cousin, the owner of three pitbulls, pried its jaws open. The pug escaped, a little worse for wear, with his master. The children beat the attacking dog with their shoes. What is this horseback ride going to be like? I thought.

I have been horsebackriding several times in tourist areas in the United States. You can basically take a nap on the horse. They just follow the crowd. Not so in Colombia. There, you have to work at it. You have to keep the horse on the path. You have to trot to catch up. You have to connect with your house. You actually have to learn how to ride.

But it was awesome. The scenery was stunning. The trail was amazing. The horses were great. The company was enjoyable. The guides were helpful.

I thought, we are really doing this. We are riding horses through the Andes mountains like in the movies. It had been a great day. God had planned better. My wife and I looked around at our new Colombian family, our son-in-law, and our daughters. “This is one of the greatest experiences of my life.” She said. “To be here in this time with these people in this place on horses is just incredible.” I agreed.

When our plans don’t work out, it can be frustrating. It doesn’t always work out as well as it did that day. It’s not always clear that God has planned better. But that day we could see what is true even when we don’t see it: God planned better.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Have you had experiences like this one? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. If you like this post, subscribe on the right hand side (laptop) or below (mobile). I hope to see you hear again.

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Why Do We Lack Joy, Peace, and Hope? (Study of Romans, Part 2: Romans 1:18–3:19)

Key Thought: a lot of things can take our joy, peace, and hope, but the main problem is our alienation from God.

What is it that keeps us from joy, peace, and hope? Many things. We make many errors in our thinking that cause us to lose these things. We exaggerate threats, make outcomes too important, tie our happiness to the wrong things, don’t see the good that we have, etc.

But Paul saw all these things as rooted in one key problem: our failure to make God central to our thoughts and lives.

We do not do this because we do not know who God is. We do know. He has made Himself clearly known (Rom. 1:19–20). It is because we refuse to take this knowledge into account and give God the glory, praise, and place He deserves. We suppress the truth.

The result is that God gives us over to our own desires. One part of our error and sin is that we want things too much. Because we have given up on that which truly satisfies us (God), we have to try to find satisfaction elsewhere. We become obsessed with other things. We take whatever gives us pleasure and make life all about that.

When we make the pleasures or experiences of life the center of our lives, we will find other people blocking our way. That’s where wars, hatred, envy, jealousy, and rage come from. And that’s where we, as a human race, are stuck.

Into this failure to keep God in our hearts and thoughts as the supreme object of devotion, people offer religion as a way to get God back into our thoughts. God Himself gave a religious system to His people in the Old and New Testaments. However, oftentimes, those who possessed this religion used it to exalt and gratify themselves and clothed their injustice in the righteous claims of their religion. They knew the Words of God. They had them. But they didn’t obey them (see Romans 2).

People will use anything to exalt themselves and place themselves at the center. Ironically, religion can be a means of escaping God and exalting ourselves. We make ourselves bigger by identifying ourselves with the transcendent. This is not a problem simply of the Jewish people, though Paul addresses them. It is a human problem. There is no tool that we use to subdue pride that cannot become a tool of pride.

Why is this? Why do we take the best things and abuse them? Because humans are bent in the wrong direction. They have a sort of acquired allergy to God that keeps them from doing the right thing. Even the people who had the clearest instruction on God went the wrong way, including Paul himself! We cannot not establish righteousness and goodness on our own. We can’t get back to joy, peace, and hope without intervention.

At this point, it is important to remember that our problem is not simply that we cannot be what God has made us to be. God is opposed to what we have become. Sin is offensive to Him. The wrath of God is being revealed against all the bad things people do (Rom. 1:18).

Some people may be offended at this idea, but here is the problem. Would we really want a God who didn’t care that people did bad things? No. We would not want to worship a God like that. We would think He was unjust. The trouble is that we think all the bad things are outside us. Instead, we need to see that they are also inside us. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 and see Paul’s summary of this in Romans 3:1-20).

When we get that, we will understand our need for reconciliation with God and transformation into a new people.

So, what is needed? A righteousness from God. That is what is revealed in the Gospel, the good news. That is what we will explore in the next section.

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Outline for Making Your Own Study of Romans 1–3

  • Paul sees the basic problem as a failure to acknowledge God, think of God, and thank God.
  • This failure leads us to try and illegitimately find our satisfaction in things that can’t satisfy us.
  • This makes us mad at other people and causes all sorts of envy and evil thinking.
  • Religion seemed to be a help to this, but human pride even used this as a tool to escape God and His claims and look down on others.
  • The reason religion (even God-given religion) failed was because of human sinfulness, or our basic bent away from God.

Questions for Reflection

  • Where are you in your relationship with God?
  • What do you often seek to satisfy you? What happens when you don’t get there?
  • What can you use to make you feel good about your relationship with God that might hide your real need?
  • How do you feel about Paul’s evaluation of human beings as sinners?

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