daily java

Daily Java:

At the Lord’s command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, arriving there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to burn incense. 2 Then at the Lord’s command, he shouted, “O altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you.” 3 That same day the man of God gave a sign to prove his message. He said, “The Lord has promised to give this sign: This altar will split apart, and its ashes will be poured out on the ground.”
4 When King Jeroboam heard the man of God speaking against the altar at Bethel, he pointed at him and shouted, “Seize that man!” But instantly the king’s hand became paralyzed in that position, and he couldn’t pull it back. 5 At the same time a wide crack appeared in the altar, and the ashes poured out, just as the man of God had predicted in his message from the Lord.
6 The king cried out to the man of God, “Please ask the Lord your God to restore my hand again!” So the man of God prayed to the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored and he could move it again.
7 Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to the palace with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift.”
8 But the man of God said to the king, “Even if you gave me half of everything you own, I would not go with you. I would not eat or drink anything in this place. 9 For the Lord gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’” 10 So he left Bethel and went home another way.
11 As it happened, there was an old prophet living in Bethel, and his sons came home and told him what the man of God had done in Bethel that day. They also told their father what the man had said to the king. 12 The old prophet asked them, “Which way did he go?” So they showed their father which road the man of God had taken. 13 “Quick, saddle the donkey,” the old man said. So they saddled the donkey for him, and he mounted it.
14 Then he rode after the man of God and found him sitting under a great tree. The old prophet asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”
 “Yes, I am,” he replied.
15 Then he said to the man of God, “Come home with me and eat some food.”
16 “No, I cannot,” he replied. “I am not allowed to eat or drink anything here in this place. 17 For the Lord gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’”
18 But the old prophet answered, “I am a prophet, too, just as you are. And an angel gave me this command from the Lord: ‘Bring him home with you so he can have something to eat and drink.’” But the old man was lying to him. 19 So they went back together, and the man of God ate and drank at the prophet’s home.
20 Then while they were sitting at the table, a command from the Lord came to the old prophet. 21 He cried out to the man of God from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: You have defied the word of the Lord and have disobeyed the command the Lord your God gave you. 22 You came back to this place and ate and drank where he told you not to eat or drink. Because of this, your body will not be buried in the grave of your ancestors.”
23 After the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the old prophet saddled his own donkey for him, 24 and the man of God started off again. But as he was traveling along, a lion came out and killed him. His body lay there on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. 25 People who passed by saw the body lying in the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and reported it in Bethel, where the old prophet lived.
26 When the prophet heard the report, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the Lord’s command. The Lord has fulfilled his word by causing the lion to attack and kill him.”
27 Then the prophet said to his sons, “Saddle a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey, 28 and he went out and found the body lying in the road. The donkey and lion were still standing there beside it, for the lion had not eaten the body nor attacked the donkey. 29 So the prophet laid the body of the man of God on the donkey and took it back to the town to mourn over him and bury him. 30 He laid the body in his own grave, crying out in grief, “Oh, my brother!”
31 Afterward the prophet said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones. 32 For the message the Lord told him to proclaim against the altar in Bethel and against the pagan shrines in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.” (1 Kings 13)

The point? No matter how trustworthy the messenger, or respected the teacher, if he says something different than God told you, don’t do it.

daily java

Daily Java:

Psalm 13

For the choir director: A psalm of David.
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.

Someone once said that we get to being depressed not because bad things happen, but because good things do not. After a while, it seems there is no balance in our lives.

And you wonder why God allows this in a Christian’s life. Why is it that one who is to be seen by the world as joyous, full of the grace and Spirit of God can have his life go on and on in such a dismaying fashion.

And there is no real answer to that. Those who are hurting the child of God think they have won. He has been stopped from doing what we do not want him to do, so we win.

And in some respects they have. When we begin to feel deserted by the One we worship, they are winning.

We ask how long will you keep on allowing us to be punished? How long will you forget me? Because, after all, when the Lord pays no attention to you, it feels as if he has forgotten you.

It is easy to say, well God is still there and is still in control. It is easy to say, if you can’t see his hand, trust his heart.

And while true to a point, at the same time, these are cloying aphorisms that mean nothing except that the sayer is not very smart or very inventive.

When the sparkle is gone, you need the one who created the eyes to hear. And sometimes he doesn’t. Not only does he not hear, he sometimes will not hear for years.

I trust in the love of God and I sing to him. But I need him to hear me and see me.

God is good and I praise his name. But I need to hear him.

daily java

Daily Java:

“Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. That evening Jesus’ disciples went down to the shore to wait for him. But as darkness fell and Jesus still hadn’t come back, they got into the boat and headed across the lake toward Capernaum. Soon a gale swept down upon them, and the sea grew very rough. They had rowed three or four miles when suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water toward the boat. They were terrified, but he called out to them, “Don’t be afraid. I am here!” Then they were eager to let him in the boat, and immediately they arrived at their destination! (John 6:10-21)

It is so easy to forget great things when they are in the past. And it doesn’t even have to be that far in the past, either.

Jesus just got through feeding 5,000 men and their wives and families a few loaves of bread and a few dried fish. They were there, they were hungry and Jesus wanted to make a point to his disciples. The point he wanted to make was that he could take care of them.

He kept breaking the laves and fish into pieces until there was enough to go around for everyone.

Then he had them gather up the left-overs. There were twelve baskets filled with fish and bread.

His point? There were twelve of them and twelve baskets, one for each. He could feed a multitude of people and still have enough left over for his apostles. In other words, they didn’t have to worry about dinner as long as they were following him.

Jesus was trying to tell them that he was not going to desert them and let them starve. They had not backed the wrong horse. He was real and he would provide for those who made it their life work to teach about him.

But that evening, when they went across the water to go to the other side where Jesus was staying, there was a storm. They were afraid. We are going to die and Jesus would be mad and God would have to start all over with new apostles. It will set the kingdom of God back considerably.

Then to top it off, here comes Jesus walking on the water and it scared them further. His response? Don’t be afraid. I am here!

It was not that the apostles were stupid. It is easy to look at these miracles and the underlying lessons and understand them when you have 2000 years of theological filter.

They didn’t have this extra knowledge. This was the first time this had ever happened to anyone and they were afraid.

Jesus had just told them he would provide for them and now he had to tell them again. Not only would he feed them, he would keep them safe. Later trouble would start and one of these men would find himself dead in just a short time after the church was started.

But for now, they were fine. Things were as God wanted them and God was in control.

There is no reason to be afraid. Paul said, in 2 Timothy 1 that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but power. He wants us to know that even if we die, God is still in control.

Easy to preach, hard to put into practice, but it is absolutely true.