"...an everlasting kingdom..."

Reading Psalm 145:13

"Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The Lord is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made."

We live in a world of constant flux. Change is an everpresent companion and catastrophic change is both the material of the daily news and a frequent visitor to our homes or to those of our family and friends. This is what makes this verse in the Psalms stand out so dramatically. God exists in stark contrast to his fallen creation. The God of the Bible is no pantheistic personalization of the Universe. God made the world but is not dependent on it, he is self-existent. As the New Testament affirms:

"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end."
(Hebrews 1:10-12)

Think of this verse the next time you attend a funeral. As each generation departs God is as vigorous a help to the next generation as he was to the previous. God is the continuity that ties all the generations together. He knew and loved my great grandfather just as he loves and cares for me. In the end he is the one who will bring us all together again and unite us together as one family. This is the promise to all those who have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and have become the children of God through faith in him.

The endurance of God's rule as king over all his creation is the foundation for the statement that follows: "the Lord is faithful to all his promises." Because his authority is never shaken, nothing can hinder God's intention to be "loving to all he has made." We are the beneficiaries of the faithful love of a changeless God. This is why my constant prayer for my children is not that they would have great wealth, but that they would be rich in faith.

Praise for God

Reading Psalm 145:10

"All you have made will praise you, O Lord;
your saints will extol you."

We have praise for all kinds of things in this world. We speak in glowing terms of sports teams, hobbies, books we've read, people we admire, historical events, etc. God made all these things and is involved in everything that is good, yet often we fail to recognize him for his "mighty acts" (verse 12). By exalting God we don't give him a higher place in the world, he is already in the highest place, but we give him a higher place in our thoughts and gain a true perspective on our relationship to him and on what is really important in this world.

The Lord is gracious and compassionate

Reading Psalm 145:8-10

"The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made."

Comforting words but not infrequently a passage like this is used to deny the existence of the God of the Bible. "If God is all powerful and perfectly loving then evil would not be allowed to exist in the world. Evil exists, therefore God does not." This argument is only effective on the basis of a denial of the early chapters of Genesis. God created a world in which evil did not exist and put man into a state of probationary perfection. People rebelled against God and refused to submit to him. A historical transition took place in which God cursed man and the earth and allowed a time in which we can experiment with sin and rebellion and in which we can taste both the judgment and mercy of God. It is in this context that a passage like this becomes extremely important. This passage and others like it remind us that even though we have rebelled against God and rejected him, and even though God has revealed his wrath against us he stills loves us and desires our return. In the midst of a situation where we have turned away from him God is pouring out his love and compassion on us and calling us to return to him that we may receive mercy and forgiveness. This combination of both judgment and mercy in the world reveals something of the character of God and of the character that he intends for us. We are in a terrible situation of our own making but God surrounds us with his love until the day when the curse is forever destroyed and those who have received him are renewed in the image of Christ.

One generation to another

Reading Psalm 145:4-7

"One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness."

The Psalmist reminds us that the greatness of God is revealed to every generation. Every generation has a story to tell to the next. The further we travel in life the more we have to tell and the greater the obligation to tell it. The obligation is both collective ("they") and personal ("I"). No one else is going to discharge my obligation to seek to pass on the stories of the mighty acts of God that I have witnessed. In the Psalm there is a back and forth interplay between the witness of the congregation and the witness of the individual believer. If I think I have nothing to tell it means that I have probably been living my life with my eyes shut or have been looking only at my own feet. If I have cared to see it I have been a witness to the mighty power of God.

The Psalmist is clear that we are not simply witnesses to ancient history, to something that happened in the dark ages of the past. We are not witnesses to theories that picture God as an unseen force, an ultimate cause. We must give witness to God's "works," to his "mighty acts," and to what this means for us as it reveals "the glorious splendor of your majesty."

If we have an obligation to speak about these things then we have an equal obligation to listen. What have we learned of God from the generation that has come before us? Surely this portion of the Psalm is a testimony to the importance of the work of Church History in preserving a memory of God's action in the world throughout all generations.

It is important both to listen and to tell. If all we do is tell our own stories then we begin to lose perspective and God is diminished. If all we does is listen then we fail to bear witness to what God has done in our own life and the story ends with us.

"They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds."

"...his greatness no one can fathom"

Reading Psalm 145:1-3

"I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you and extol your name
for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom."

All kinds of thoughts, both great and small, occupy our minds. Everything we think about has an impact on us. Those things that we think about every day for an extended period of time begin to shape us and become formative to our character. This is why it is important to be conscious of our thought life and of what is dominating our minds. David makes a conscious choice to exalt God in his thoughts. He intends to do this regularly ("every day") for an extended period of time ("for ever and ever"). Think of the effect that this choice will have over a lifetime. Our problems, worries, fears, tend to have an intimidating effect on us. Yet, as great as our troubles may seem, God is greater: "his greatness no one can fathom." When we remind ourselves of this "every day" and "for ever and ever" our life begins to appear differently to us than it did when we lived without choosing to cultivate great thoughts of God. Of course, we can allow God to be absent from our minds and fail to receive the comfort and assurance that comes from thinking of him. Even then we don't change the fact that no one can fathom the greatness of God. What are you thinking about today?

"My father is always at his work..."

Reading John 5:16-17
"So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.'

God is always working. Jesus' miracles are a peeling back of the curtain to reveal the work and character of God. The miracles, in and of themselves, are acts of compassion. In this Jesus reveals the compassionate nature of God and his interest in each and every individual in the context of the way in which they experience 'the curse.' The miracles do not reflect a change of heart for God or a change of approach to human suffering. They occur in a very short spurt of revelation through the person of Jesus. These miracles make the statement that God has always cared about his people, even 'to this very day,' even though he does not jump into our suffering the way Jesus does during these few short years of his life. Jesus demonstrates the ongoing compassion of God and the ultimate direction that his compassion will take when the curse has finally been put to rest in the second coming of Jesus. They are meant to point to God, to his attitude towards us, and to his intentions for the future. They are signs of hope and reassurance that in the coming of Jesus the turning point of history has arrived and the end of suffering is at hand.

On the other hand the lack of compassion of even the most religious amongst us is brought to light. The religious leaders object that Jesus is healing on the sabbath and breaking the rules. But Jesus shows that God is always working out his compassion towards us and no rules stand in the way of his love and mercy. Jesus' work is a demonstration and continuation of this compassion and he wishes to draw us into that same work.

Is it nightime? ... God is still working.
Have I given up? ... God is still working.
Have I run out of resources? ... God is still working.
Am I without the power to help myself? ... God is still working.
Have others ceased to look upon me with compassion? ... God is still working.
Have I lost my vision? ... God is still working.

"I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them...". (Exodus 3:7-8a)

"Unless you ... see miraculous signs ... you will never believe..."

Reading John 4:43-54
The Healing of the Royal Official's son.

A man, whoose son is near death, comes to Jesus and begs him to heal his son before it is too late. The man is desperate and sees no issue other than the critical condition of his son. This is about one thing and one thing only and as we read the story we are drawn into his worldview and accept the simplicity of the situation. The worldview of the desperate is this: there is a terrible need and there is a man who is reputed to be able to perform miracles. If this man can heal then he should heal and if he doesn't then we have to question either his power or his love. This is the argument from evil in a microcosom.

Jesus reaction to this man creates a kind of dissonance that is intended to shake the readers worldview with respect to this story. In the first place Jesus shows the same reluctance with respect to performing a miracle as he did at the previous Cana wonder, the wedding feast. And in the second place Jesus confronts this man with something of a rebuke that refuses to simply set everything aside in the face of his son's near death condition. We are looking for a simpler, more straightforward story. A sick boy, a powerful healer, a loving God, a miraculous and unconditional outcome. That is not what we get. We do get a positive outcome but we also encounter the reluctance and a not too sublte rebuke.

Jesus reveals in this story that the deepest issue here is not our relationship to our problems, fears, and needs but our relationship to faith in God. Jesus confronts this frightened man with a deeper reality about his condition. He can see that, while this man has a measure of faith in what he has heard about Jesus, his faith is so fragile that it will not withstand a negative answer to his request. He must have the miracle or he will have no faith. This is a constant theme throughout the fourth gospel. The faith that Jesus demands is a faith in the word and character of God, a faith that will wait, and hope, and endure because it is rooted in a living relationship with the Creator.

Jesus grants the mans request but still puts into the experience a test of faith that the man is able to pass. He refuses to go with the man to the child's bedside. He says to the man: "You may go. Your son will live." The man must leave Jesus and return to his son trusting that Jesus can be taken at his word. In this case Jesus has accomodated himself to the weakness of the seeker's faith.

When we are desperate we think that Jesus should leave all other issues aside and simply show his compassion by responding to our demands. Jesus knows that, sometimes, it is only in these situations that we are willing to listen to a truly radical message from God. There will not always be a healing but there should always be faith. God is God, whether his answer is yes or no.

"because of the woman's testimony..."

Reading John 4:39-42
"Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I ever did.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.'"

This woman's faith was not based on the presentation of some rational argument for the existence of God or some kind of scientific evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus is God. Does this make her faith irrational, or blind faith, as some have labelled it? Not in the least. She believed for reasons that were compelling to her. The conversation that she had with Jesus was sufficient to convince her that he was the Messiah. The heart of her conviction comes from this simple testimony: "He told me everything I ever did." It was Jesus' intimate knowledge of her and his understanding of all that her poor choices in life had brought her to that convinced her that he was indeed "the Christ." In very short order Jesus penetrated through all the fog of her life, showed her her heart, and gave her hope. In our encounter with Jesus in the Gospels it is just such a revelation that awaits us. We find someone who knows our heart and are convinced that he has extended himself to us just as personaly as if we were standing by the well with him. Out of the encounter comes new hope and a simple testimony. Our testimony in turn awakens others whose curiosity is aroused enough to compel them to go to Jesus and question him for themselves. Once this happens our testimony has served its purpose as introduction to Jesus. Those who come to Jesus because of it can then say "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world." Through Jesus' intervention in her life this woman went from being a community outcast to being a respected leader. All this just from accepting Jesus' commentary on her life and then saying to others "Come, see..." (v 29).

"My food is..."

Reading John 4:27-38
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

The story of the woman at the well is a story of thirst and hunger. It is a story of spiritual thirst and hunger that is set against the backdrop of their physical equivalents. We know the feeling of physical hunger, of craving and satisfaction. The feeling of spiritual hunger is not unlike this. In fact the feelings are so similar that we often attempt to satisfy our spiritual hunger with physical things. What this story demonstrates is that while we know instinctively how to satisfy our physical thirst and hunger we do not have an equivalent natural instinct for the satisfaction of our spiritual needs. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about" (John 4:32). As he does so many times in his conversations and encounters with people Jesus takes us from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

"My food is to do the will...of someone else..."
"My food is to finish the work...of someone else..."

This is counterintuitive. I naturally think that solving my thirst would involve doing my will and engaging in my work. This is why so many spiritual and religious pursuits leave me feeling empty. I hope that feeding my physical and psychological hunger will somehow feed my spirtual hunger. I repeat over and over again the same paths to fulfillment that lead me to the same dead end. This is where so much of the self-help spirituality leads to.

Jesus is showing his followers that our spiritual hunger is telling us that we have lost touch with the will of God that "sends" us out of our own world and into the world of God and others. The will of God that Jesus wants us to connect with asks us to look on a field that we did not plant, to bring in a harvest that does not belong to us, and to share in the joy with those that we would otherwise have no connection with.

The lonely individual, eaten up with spiritual hunger, is satisfied, not by looking inward, but by looking upward and outward. The value of looking inward is in coming to fully appreciate what the soul hungers for, that is, God and others. Failure to take this inward look means we continue to pursue the illusive goal of self-fulfillment. Only surrender to the will of God and to doing the work of loving God and neighbour leads to the peace that I cannot find anywhere else. In the story, all of this purpose was focused on one cast-off woman. The great harvest never becomes an impersonal enterprise of numbers and statistics and complex strategies. It is a matter of one person reaching out to another person in the name of Jesus. Deep spiritual thirsts are satisfied in these simple actions.

"...a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight."

From James Houston's book, "Prayer: the transforming friendship":

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, once told the story of two brothers who met for a weekend after a long time apart. On the first night, the older brother was fascinated to see that his younger brother knelt and prayed by his bedside. 'Huh, you still do that?' he said. The younger brother did not reply, but from that time he never prayed again.

Tolstoy remarked:

'This is not because he knows his brother's convictions and has joined him in them, nor because he has decided anything in his own soul, but simply because the word spoken by his brother was like the push of a finger on a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight.'"

Oh, Watcher on the Wall, how solid are your foundations?

my Father's house

Reading John 2:12-25 (The Cleansing of the Temple)
"Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

With this story John continues to lay out his themes for the rest of the gospel. The story points to the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, addresses the question of his authority, links him to Old Testament Scriptures, presents him as the watershed between belief and unbelief, illustrates the religious stagnation that had infected the Temple worship, and foreshadows his death, burial, and resurrection while presenting him as the true Temple of God.

Why was Jesus so angry about what was going on in the Temple courts? The animals that were being sold were to be used for the prescribed ritual sacrifices. The money changers were there to ensure that the Temple tax could be paid in the proper currency. I think that the reason for the cleansing goes beyond the suggestion that these merchants were overcharging for their services. I believe that Jesus would have cleansed the Temple courts even if they had been conducting this business at cost or as a non-profit service. The Temple and its courts were to be a place for worship and prayer alone. All preparations were to be made outside the gates and the worshippers were to take nothing in but their own readiness to present themselves to God.

Jesus' disciples remembered "that it is written:'Zeal for your house will consume me.'" We are the new Temple of God. We are that Temple both individually and collectively. In his zeal for God's house what would Jesus overturn and chase out of the Temple courts of our lives? There is a space that should not be cluttered, even with the accompaniments of our religious faith, and into which we are to bring only ourselves. Yet so often every space in our lives is filled with "things," religious and otherwise. Is there a time and place in my life that represents the Temple and it's courts, where nothing enters but my prepared heart and the sacrifices that I bring to God? Have I allowed that place to become slowly filled with clutter and activity? Take a look at the geography of your life today. Find the temple courts and look honestly at what has been going on there.

"The one who comes from above is above all..."

Reading John 3:31-36
"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

This is John the Baptist's testimony concerning Jesus. John met Jesus as a man, as he met every other human being that came to him to be baptized. There is no human explanation for how John saw Jesus as distinct from everyone else that had ever lived. Nothing short of an aboslute and clear revelation from heaven could have given him the perspective that he shares here.

John begins by contrasting Jesus with himself. This is a good starting point because John was accepted as a great prophet by the people. As many as two million people came to him to be baptized. John was the central figure of the greatest revival that Israel had ever seen. John is referred to as the greatest of all the prophets. So to start by comparing Jesus to himself was to take a very high point of comparison. John does not simply say that Jesus is an even greater prophet than he is. John tells us that the origin of Jesus, the roots of Jesus being, are located in a radically different place than his own. John is a man, a great man, an influential man, God's man, but JUST a man, he is "from the earth" and "belongs to the earth." Jesus, on the other hand, is also a man, but not JUST a man. Jesus is "the one who comes from above," "the one who comes from heaven." This removes Jesus from the lists of the "one hundred greatest people that ever lived" category, and places him in a category of his own, a category that John repeats twice for emphasis. Jesus is "above all."

Everyone else "belongs to the earth." Jesus belongs to heaven.
Everyone else "speaks as one from the earth." Jesus speaks as someone from another place.
Everyone else speaks what they have received second hand. Jesus "testifies to what he has seen and heard."
Everyone else speaks words from God. Jesus "speaks the words of God."
Everyone else has a given measure of the Spirit. Jesus has "the Spirit without limit."

"The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands."

The fate of every human being that has ever lived and that ever will live turns on whether they accept or reject Jesus. "Whoever rejects the Son will not see life."

This is the Jesus that you can talk to today. The Father has placed everything you could ever need in his hands. The same hands that received the nails because of our sin, now offer us everything. He has forgiven and has paid the full price for all of our sin. John knew that there was no one else like him. Do you?

"What does it profit a man...?"

Reading Mark 8:36
"What good is it (does it profit a man) for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit (lose) his soul?"

Its all here: profit, gain, and loss. Yes, thats pretty much everything in a material world.

The North American church is well on its way to "gaining the whole world." Congratulations on a very successful enterprise! The person in the pew, however, seems well on the way to "losing her own soul." The Christians that I know have never been hungrier for spiritual things, have never been more discontent, have never questioned the usefulness of the church, as much as they do now. Very little of what is being done is being done for "the soul." The church has never been busier, while the souls of its members atrophy and waste away.

The church hears this warning of Jesus as a word against the worldly person but it is not. It is a warning to the religious, who build efficient organizations and put up beautiful structures, and raise large sums of money, and get headlines in the newspapers, and get listed as the "fifty most influential...", and can even find their faces on the cover of Time magazine. These things are irrelevant to me, they are incidentals. The purpose of Jesus' condemnation was not to set himself against material things or organizational progress. The purpose of Jesus was to warn that the incidentals can easily become the whole heart and soul of our lives. What is happening to the Christian soul in the midst of all of this?

You have a nice church, but "what does it profit a man...?"

You have programs for every age group and interest, but "what does it profit a man...?"

You have more money than ever, but "what does it profit a man...?"

You have a prime location for your facilities, but "what does it profit a man...?"

You can draw more people than the church down the street, but "what does it profit a man...?"

You can influence the outcome of an election, but "what does it profit a man...?"

Have you pinched the sheep lately? Do you know if under all that wool they are tired, weak, discouraged, empty, malnourished? Have the disciplines of the spiritual life all but dried up amongst the members of the church? Do you know that the leadership of the church must someday "give an account" (Hebrews 13:17) for the "souls" of its people?

"the wind blows wherever it pleases..."

Reading John 3:6-8
"Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit...The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

The flesh, the physical in general and the sinful in particular, is subject to a certain kind of explanation. There is a certain logic to what the natural man does. The way of the flesh makes sense to the flesh, is defensable by the flesh. The Spirit, on the other hand, is confusing to the flesh: "It blows wherever it pleases..." It does not allow the flesh to set its own course anymore. This is one of the reasons that the Spiritual life is so difficult. The call to live it comes from beyond everything that we have understood, everything that we are familiar with. This is why so many of the things that Jesus spoke strike us as being unrealistically radical. We are dumbfounded by them. We view them as optional or at least as accesible only to "saints." We take these sayings with a grain of salt, as Spiritual hyperbole, as literary exageration to have a certain disorienting effect on us. What we don't do is take them seriously, as if they were really intended to be applied to our day to day life.

However, should the church begin to follow the Spirit and live by his logic then it becomes a spectacle, a novelty, something to take notice of. This is what is intended by:

1. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

2. "If we are out of our mind it is for the sake of God" II Cor. 5:13

3. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." I Cor. 2:14

4. "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" I Cor. 1:20

5. "For we are to God the aroma of Christ (we have the smell of something from another world) among those who are being saved and those who are perishing: to the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life...AND WHO IS EQUAL TO SUCH A TASK?"
II Cor. 15-16

Here is the recognition that it is not a human task, at least not a task for the flesh. Are our lives explainable entirely on the basis of the flesh? Is there any smell of the other world on us?

A horrifying truth

I have discovered a horrifying truth. Stated simply, it is this: If I do not love my enemy I cannot love anyone.

I have learned this the hard way. I have learned it through pain and hurt, received and inflicted. Have you ever wondered why Jesus would force on us such a radically counter-intuitive demand as this: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Mat. 5:44), "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you..." (Luke 6:37-28), "love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back..." (Luke 6:35)?

Jesus understood that all of my love is at risk if I refuse to love (defined as praying for, doing good to, lending to, etc...) my enemy. I am genuinely horrified at this realization. I have good reason to be. There are things we will never understand about ourselves, about God, about the people around us until we can stand before our enemy with love and compassion.

This is not an option reserved for saints. We cannot afford to wait until we achieve sainthood to test the waters on this. There have been few insights that have shaken me as much as this one has.

"Can anything good come from there?"

Reading John 1:43-46
"Philip found Nathanael and told him, 'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' 'Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?' Nathanael asked."

Prejudice (pre-judgement) can blind us to so many good things. Nathanael didn't need to meet Jesus to know that he could not be a source of good. Nathanael knew the town where Jesus grew up and what could be expected from a start like that. Luckily Nathanael was introduced to Jesus and was able to see past his prejudice to the person who stood before him. The point, however, is that he nearly missed God because he had a pre-conceived idea about the way in which God should show himself. How many times do we miss God because we think we know how God would speak, act, react in some particular circumstance?

Jesus was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married. Can anything good come from that?

Jesus "came eating and drinking, and they say, 'here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners.'" Can anything good come from that?

Jesus had no job, home, or family, and accumulated no material possessions. Can anything good come from that?

Jesus broke the Jewish sabbath laws time after time and offended the leaders of his own religious upbringing. Can anything good come from that?

Jesus shamed religious leaders but forgave a woman who was caught in the act of cheating on her husband. Can anything good come from that?

Jesus lived only thirty three years, his ministry lasted only about three years, and he was executed before he had a chance to create any kind of organizational structure to his movement. Can anything good come from that?

Jonah had the same problem with God. God wanted to show kindness to Israel's worst enemy and spare them from destruction. Could anything good come from that?

Elijah had the same problem with God. God had allowed the forces of evil to grow so strong that Elijah thought he was the only one who was left who had been faithful to God. Elijah was reduced to the point of despair and suicide. Can anything good come from that?

Eve had the same problem with God. Here was all this wonderful fruit that was "good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom..." Yet God was withholding this treasure from her. Could anything good come from that?

Saul had the same problem with God. All those wonderful possessions that they had captured in battle could surely be used for some good purpose. Yet God had ordered them all destroyed. Could anything good come from that?

I have the same problem with God. His ways are just not my ways and his thoughts are just not my thoughts. God has allowed so much evil in the world. Can anything good come from that? God has taken me through so many dark places. Can anything good come from that? God has allowed people that I love to be hurt or to hurt themselves through so many foolish choices. Can anthing good come from that?

I know better than God what would be good for me. I'll just go my own way and do what I think is best. But can anything good come from that?

For those who walked with Jesus and trusted him through his life, death, burial, and into his resurrection: everything good came from that!

Pat Robertson

"Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for dividing God's land." (Sonja Barisic, Associated Press)

Is there no one close enough to Pat Robertson to share the gospel with him? This man needs Christ.

Follow me

Reading John 1:43
"Follow me"

A call to follow is both a call to embrace something new and to release or leave behind something old. The more radical the call, the more deeply felt the gains and losses will be. I have never found the call of Jesus to be comfortable or to feel safe. It is a call away from all that is familiar and reasonable.

I can love people who love me. I just can't feel comfortable with loving my enemy, with blessing those who curse me and doing good to those who despitefully use me and persecute me. I saw what happened to Martin Luther King. It just doesn't seem fair. Being a Christian offends my sense of justice. To love my enemy, I just can't follow that.
(But if I don't follow will I ever find out who God is? If I don't follow won't God always seem as boring and shallow as myself? I don't need God to help me be like me but I sure need him to help me be like him.)

I can forgive people who hurt me, within reason and up to a certain limit. I just can't keep forgiving them over and over again. You have to keep some kind of accounting of wrongs done, after which you call down fire from heaven. After all, many of my favorite movies are based on the revenge theme. It feels good to finally have a day of reckoning. To give up that "right," I just can't follow that.
(But if I don't follow will I ever find out who God is? If I don't follow won't God always seem as boring and shallow as myself? I don't need God to help me be like me but I sure need him to help me be like him.)

I can extend myself to help others, if I have the time and it doesn't conflict with my plans. My right to myself and to all that I own is not something that I can just let slip away. To "consider others better than myself," to "take the very nature of a servant," this is going way too far. I just can't follow that.
(But if I don't follow will I ever find out who God is? If I don't follow won't God always seem as boring and shallow as myself? I don't need God to help me be like me but I sure need him to help me be like him.)

Believe me, the list goes on and on.

How could Jesus just walk up to me, in the midst of my comfortable life and say: "follow me?"

What am I to do?

I learned quickly how to be a good Baptist but how can I learn to be a good Christian? You say, "follow me," but how can I possibly keep up to you? Perhaps, after starting with good intention, I've lost sight of you already. Help me to "follow hard after you."

What do you want?

Are you a follower of Jesus? What are you following him for? What do you want from him? After John had baptized Jesus he saw Jesus passing by the next day and pointed him out, saying, "Look, the Lamb of God!" At this point two of John's followers left him to follow Jesus. Jesus, aware that they were following, turned around and asked them: "What do you want?" (John 1:38).

What makes a person want to follow Jesus? What makes a person leave what was previously important to him and take after this very unusual man? These two people had been a part of the revival movement that John had instituted and yet at the sight of Jesus they were prepared to leave John and start over with Jesus. How do they answer Jesus' question? They respond by asking him where he is staying. They cannot articulate their reasons. Does this make them irrational and unstable? I don't think so. I think that they have sensed something about the uniqueness of the person of Jesus. They are not now following any program, revolution, philosophy, political pathway, or specific teaching. Jesus himself is the attraction and they want to know where he is staying because they want to be with him. This is fundamentally what it is to have an encounter with God. We come under the influence of his person, his authority, his greatness, his way with people, his immense love and his undeniable intention to be with us (Immanuel). Throughout the gospel story we learn much of what it means to follow Jesus but the draw of Jesus is nothing less than the weight of his personality. Here is a most remarkable person who invites us to "Come...and see" (John 1:39).