Turn back

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Lamentations 4-5; Psalm 30

TO CHEW ON: "Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored; Renew our days as of old." Lamentations 5:21

The bleak book of Lamentations ends on a bright note—the possibility of returning to God.

Stories of repentance (turning back to God) run through the Bible.

• David repented after committing adultery and murder (Psalm 51:1-19).

• Josiah repented when the priests found and read the books of the law (2 Kings 22:11,19).

• The pagan Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah (Jonah 3:6-9).

• Even evil King Ahab repented after hearing about God's coming judgment from Elijah (1 Kings 21:27).

I love the story of the Prodigal Son and the wording Luke uses to describe his return: "But when he came to himself he said...I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned...'" (Luke 15:17-18).

I'm sure you can remember your own coming to yourself, that moment when you 'repented' (turned, changed direction) from unbelief to faith, self-direction to God-direction. I know I can. I tell my story here (end of "My Rambling Story").

Of course following that one moment of big repentance when life takes a whole different direction, there are hundreds of smaller repentances. Each time we find ourselves again taking control of our lives and letting our old carnal self have the upper hand we can repent, turn back and be restored and renewed.

Jack Hayford says about repentance:

"The implications of biblical repentance are threefold:
1. Renunciation and reversal.
2. Submission and teachability.
3. Continued shapeability.


There is no birth into the kingdom without hearing the call to salvation, renouncing one's sin and turning from sin toward Christ the Saviour (Acts 3:19)" - Jack Hayford, "Repentance," New Spirit Filled Life Bible, p. 1293.

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for drawing me back go Yourself. I pray for the prodigals in my life, that You will bring them home in the same way. Amen.

MORE: Praise is Rising by Brenton Brown and Paul Baloche

"Hear the sound of hearts returning to You
We turn to You
In Your kingdom broken lives are renewed;
You make us new..."

Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Do your 8-12-year-olds have daily devotions? Point them to Bible Drive-Thru.

Voluntary praise

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Psalm 119:97-112

TO CHEW ON: "Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord." Psalm 119:108a

When the writer of Psalm 119 asked God to accept the "freewill offerings of my mouth" he was referring to a specific category of offerings. These were offerings that people gave to God voluntarily out of the overflow of their worship, gratitude and emotion.

In the Old Testament freewill offering [Nedabah = voluntariness, free-will offering] is first used in Exodus 35 where Moses asked the Israelites to bring treasure (most of it plundered from the Egyptians when they left Egypt) for building the tabernacle (Exodus 35:29).

Though freewill offerings were voluntary, they were to be of the same quality as other sacrifices (Leviticus 22:18-23). They were also to be offered not just any old place but at the place of worship (Deuteronomy 12:5-7; 17). It is clear from Leviticus 23:38 that they were an expected part of the sacrifice routine along with prescribed offerings, keeping the Sabbath, bringing gifts, and making vows. They were common enough to warrant a priest whose sole job it was to look after them (2 Chronicles 31:14).

It's in the context of this kind of sacrifice that the Psalm-writer asks God to accept the "freewill offerings of my mouth." It is a metaphor for volunteer praise, worship, adoration and thanksgiving that flows to God from a praising, worshiping, adoring, and thankful heart.

We don't know whether he offered these freewill offerings of his mouth only at the temple when he went to worship, or offered them wherever he was. Neither do we know whether he would have disqualified himself if he was an off-key singer or a stuttering speaker. I hope these exclusions are not implied. Rather I like to think of the invitation to bring such sacrifices as open-armed as the one in Hosea:

Take words with you,
      And return to the LORD.
      Say to Him,


      “Take away all iniquity;
      Receive us graciously,
      For we will offer the sacrifices of our lips." - Hosea 14:2 NKJV

and in Hebrews:

Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name." -
Hebrews 13:15 AMP

PRAYER: Dear God, "Freewill offerings" — what a wonderful metaphor for praise and worship. Help me to make such offerings throughout my day as I reflect on You and Your ways with me. Amen.

MORE: "Hosanna" by Paul Baloche

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Sifted

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Amos 9:1-15

TO CHEW ON: "For surely I will command,
And I will sift the house of Israel among all nations
As Grain is sifted in a sieve;
Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground." Amos 9:9


My earliest memories of sifting are from when I was a little girl and learning to bake. Mom taught me to make sure I always sifted the flour before putting it into anything. That was because beetles sometimes got into the large kitchen bin where we kept the 100 lb. quantities of flour we bought. I'm sure if I found beetles in my flour now, I'd throw out the whole lot. But not then. We'd simply remove the wriggling black interlopers and carry on, mixing the bread, cookies or whatever.

The act of sifting ("To pass through a sieve in order to separate the fine parts from the coarse") is referred to in the Bible at various times. It is God's way of revealing the covered or hidden things that shouldn't be there (e.g. Proverbs 20:26). The intention is to get rid of them.

However, the purpose of sifting is also to separate out and preserve what is good. Unlike the Ethiopians, Philistines and Syrians, which God says He will destroy, He will sift Israel so that he can preserve the "house of Jacob" (Amos 9:7-9). He'll separate out the bad stuff to preserve all that is good (down to the "smallest grain").

The process of sifting, when it affects our lives, is never fun. Just as the physical act of sifting disturbs every bit of the sifted product, so God's sifting of us is uncomfortable, painful, even life-shaking. Job is one man I think of when I think of the sifting of a life. Nothing he had was left untouched.

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to Satan asking to sift Peter. Though at first Peter failed the sifting test, Jesus told him that the sifting would eventually work toward him strengthening others (Luke 22:31-32).

Are you being sifted? All kinds of things can serve as sifters, from the normal tensions of work and family life to the unusual stresses of accidents, crimes, natural disasters, disease, unemployment, etc. If you feel like you are being sifted, remember the purpose of the process—to reveal what shouldn't be there so you can deal with it now, and to separate out what is worth preserving.

Peter speaks of the end result of such a purifying and separating process in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (using the metaphor of purifying gold in fire). "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to realize that problems in my life may be part of Your sifting and purifying process in me. Help me to endure so my life will glorify You. Amen.

MORE: Paul Baloche sings "Shaken"





Paul Baloche tells the story of writing the song "Shaken" in this 1.5 minute video.

Do your 8-12-year-olds have daily devotions? Point them to Bible Drive-Thru.

Fiery refining

Liquid gold - Courtesy RGBStock.com

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Zechariah 13:1-9

TO CHEW ON: "I will bring one-third through the fire,
Will refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested
They will call on My name;
And I will answer them.
I will say, 'This is My people';
And each one will say, 'The Lord is my God' " - Zechariah 13:9

This chilling prophecy was fulfilled in the near term for Israel in A.D. 70 when Jerusalem was overrun and sacked by the Romans. The connection is clear because of the picture of the struck shepherd and scattered sheep (Zechariah 13:7) that precedes it. Jesus, who referred to Himself as the shepherd (John 10) quoted words from Zechariah 13:7 to warn His disciples of what would happen with them when He would be struck down (Matthew 26:31). The disciples were scattered first at His crucifixion, and after the establishment of the church by persecution. Jerusalem was destroyed by fire, as predicted.

However, I believe we can view this prophecy of refining as something that is for the entire church age. "No clearer picture of Jesus and His suffering church is given in the Old Testament" says the Reformation Study Bible comments on verse 9.

As we look at some of the places the Bible mentions refining / testing, we see the methods  God uses to refine and what He wants to accomplish.

• Job's test (through a complete turnaround in fortunes and bad health to boot) was to prove what he was really made of (Job 23:10).

• The writer of Proverbs talked of God's correction as a proof of His parenthood and love (Proverbs 3:12).

• Isaiah spoke of God's "hand against you" that was meant to "purge away your dross and take away all your alloy" —a picturesque way of saying God's tests are a way to rid us of all that isn't the real thing (Isaiah 1:25).

• In another place Isaiah talked of testing in the furnace of "affliction" (Isaiah 48:10). "Affliction" - oniy -  means "affliction, poverty, misery."

• In our passage the refining through fire was meant to bring the tested ones back to God. They pray, He answers, and they are reunited in a new identity and loyalty (Zechariah 14:9).

• In Malachi the ministering tribe—Levites—were refined so that their ministry would be acceptable (Malachi 3:3).

• Peter talked about faith developing through testing—faith that showed itself to be genuine and that results in "praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7).

• Peter further reminded us to expect such testing rather than be surprised by it (1 Peter 4:12).

Testing, affliction, refining through fire… I don't particularly want them. You probably don't either. Still, such tests will probably come our way in one form or another.

I love the challenge in Paul Baloche's song "We Will Hold On." In the first stanza he speaks of the kind of tests we've listed above—being "persecuted and reviled ..."

In Stanza 2, he talks of another kind of test—one that might be more familiar to many of us: "We are tested by the blessing / With all the comforts of the world surrounding" (emphasis added).  That's a test that's much more to our liking, though probably as telling a test as any and as easy to fail.  For the temptation is to think we don't need Him and try to get by on our own.

Whatever test comes our way, let's accept the challenge of the Bible to stay with God. As Baloche puts it: "We will hold on to Your love" - Paul Baloche ("We Will Hold On" from the CD Glorious, Integrity Music, © 2009).

PRAYER: Dear God, help me to pass all the tests You send my way. Be very close to our brothers and sisters around the world whose lives are a series of fiery refinings. May I be prepared for a time when the same may be true of me. Amen.

MORE: "We Will Hold On"



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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

What's your spiritual surname?

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Isaiah 3:13-4:6

TO CHEW ON: "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man saying, 'We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach.'" Isaiah 4:1

The custom in our culture for a married woman to change her surname to that of her husband is ancient. Isaiah refers to it in our reading today when he talks about the desperate state of Israel's women.

In vivid poetry Isaiah describes their flirtatious ways. The result of their unfaithfulness is judgment. Their alluring points become disgusting. The men of the nation are slaughtered in war till there is such a shortage of men we see the scene described in our focus verse: seven women begging one man to give them the respectability of marriage and the right to take his name.

Name (Hebrew: shem) means renown, fame, memorial, character. The root suggests marking or branding. In the New Testament the equivalent Greek word is onoma. Besides referring to a specific person, onoma is also used for all the things that a name implies such as rank, authority, character and reputation.

Taking on another's name, as in marriage, is identification at the deepest level. God, using prophets like Isaiah, spoke about how He desired Israel and Judah to marry Him, to identify with Him, to be true to Him. He wanted them to take His name. This was His heart for them then, and is still His heart for us today:

      “Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

      I have called you by your name;

      You are Mine." - Isaiah 43:1

Through His name we receive many benefits:

•  We get remission of sins (Acts 10:43).
• We get life (John 20:31).
• We are invited to ask for things (John 14:13).
• We get the Holy Spirit, sent in His name to be our helper and counselor (John 14:25-26).

His is a most excellent, exalted name that will someday cause every conscious being to worship (Philippians 2:9-11).

Doesn't all that just make you want to live under the covering of His name forever? The end of our reading today describes the pleasant result:

"And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain." Isaiah 4:6

PRAYER: Dear God, help me to discover the beauty of identifying with You at a marriage/name-change level. Amen.

MORE: "Your Name" by Paul Baloche

Do your 8-12-year-olds have daily devotions? Point them to Bible Drive-Thru.