daily java

Daily Java:   

Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you. (Matthew 7:6)

Someone once said, don’t open a brothel with a prayer.

There are some things you cannot sanctify, no matter how much you want to. There are some things that God will not bless. Things may turn out all right with them, but it will not be the blessings of God that cause it to do so, it will just be chance.

There are some people that you cannot talk to. They will not listen. And not only will they not listen, they will ridicule to the point that it becomes counter-productive to even try to talk to them.

Jesus knew this. There were a couple of instances when he knew that there was no point in even speaking. One was with Herod at his “trial.” Herod wanted nothing more than a miracle. He wanted to see something that Jesus had done for everybody else. It is not that he would believe, but that he would be entertained.

It infuriated him finally that Jesus would not even speak to him. For one thing, Jesus had nothing to say to Herod. He knew things were going to go the way they were going to go no matter what kind of miracle he did anyway. So what was the point? To give in to Herod was to debase the power God had given Jesus and turn it in into entertainment.

That is one reason Hollywood cannot understand the power of God. They see it as purely superficial with none of the reality behind it. That is also why movies about Jesus and about Christianity are always foolish. The things God said are the pearls, Hollywood is the swine. They cannot understand it.

And, of course, since they cannot understand it, they make fun of it, ridicule it. In such an atmosphere, a Christian has difficulty doing anything, just as Jesus did. It is pointless. You are throwing something great and valuable to dogs for them to play with, something wonderful to pigs for them to eat.

That isn’t to say that we do not preach the gospel unless people are begging us to. But there are times when it is worthless to try.

In those instances all we can do is to live our lives in such a way that people can see who and what we are. Our lives have to be our words.

daily java

Daily Java:

And no one can become a high priest simply because he wants such an honor. He must be called by God for this work, just as Aaron was. That is why Christ did not honor himself by assuming he could become High Priest. No, he was chosen by God, who said to him,
   “You are my Son.
      Today I have become your Father.”
And in another passage God said to him,
   “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 5:4-6)

I grew up in the church. And I remember hearing preachers thunder on about being a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The only problem was nobody ever explained what difference it made.

It became one of those big “So What” passages.

It wasn’t until I had been in the ministry for a while that I realized what difference it made. And it is great.

In Genesis 14, Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured by another kingdom. In those days, there was constant war, people trying to overcome everybody else. When Abraham found out about it, he took his army of 318 trained men and whipped the fire of the little city-state coalition of kings and soldiers and took Lot, along with the spoils, or everything else the other kings had, back.

On the way home, Abraham and his army came by the city of Salem, which would one day be called Jerusalem. Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything he had taken in the battle.

He didn’t have to, but for some reason he did. There was the matter of tribute, of course. He was passing through Melchizedek’s kingdom, but I think Abraham had a superior force and didn’t really have to worry about it. Still, he acknowledged Melchizedek and sat a precedent.

The psalmist mentions it again in Psalm 110 when he says that the Messiah would come in the order of Melchizedek. Then it comes up again in Hebrews 5 and 7.

Only a couple of times in the Bible, yet it means a lot.

Melchizedek was independent. He was not even a Jew. In fact there were no Jews at that time. And he was a godly man who was also a king and a priest of his city-state, Salem.

When Jesus came, he came as the same. An independent priest and king. He was not qualified by Jewish law to be a priest, but God didn’t care. Jesus was independent.

When we come to God, we are independent. That means that no one can tell us what we can or cannot do in service to God except God himself. We are not members of a society, we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

We do not have to have credentials to preach, we do not have to have a stamp of approval to teach, we do not have to have permission to do anything in the name of God. We can just do it.

For the model for Jesus and his rule, God went back before the law, before the Ten Commandments, before all of the structure of the Old Testament and picked Melchizedek as the model.

If Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and we are priests also. In Revelation 1:5-6, John writes this: He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings of the world.  All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. If we are a Kingdom of priests, and we follow Jesus, who was independent, then we are independent.

We are not here to satisfy any earthly authority. We are independent. And that means that if God is happy with us, and he says he is, then we are fine, no matter what others may say.

That takes a lot of pressure – or should anyway – off us in our service.

Quit worrying about what others think and just serve. That is our heritage in Jesus and what we can do in service to God.

Moses – The Lawgiver

There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. The Lord sent him to perform all the miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, and all his servants, and his entire land. With mighty power, Moses performed terrifying acts in the sight of all Israel. (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

He never wanted to be a leader. He was content to be a shepherd in the desert, taking care of sheep until one day he died. But then he came into contact with God.

At the age of forty, Moses had tried leadership. As a Hebrew raised by Egyptian royalty, he had tried to take charge over his people from a preferred viewpoint: that of being royalty himself. He killed a man who was abusing one of his people. But it backfired when he realized that his people didn’t like him nor want him to help them.

And he ran, fearing retribution. He ran until he had lost himself. He married, had children, worked for his father-in-law, completely submerged his desire for prominence and leadership.

But one day forty years later he found the bush that was burning without being consumed. And the voice of God came from the bush telling him that he was to be a leader after all.

He tried everything he could to tell God that he wasn’t cut out, that he didn’t want to, that he was not equipped. Finally he said, just get someone else to do it.

It didn’t work and he found himself as the leader of a reluctant group of people. Not only that, but he found himself against the Egyptian royalty he had been raised with, who remembered him.

After ten demonstrations of God’s power to the Egyptians, each stronger than the last, and a miracle still talked about – the parting of the Red Sea – he led his people out of bondage to – somewhere. He knew it was the Promised Land, but exactly where, he didn’t know.

The people he was leading griped from the beginning. They wanted to leave, yet they wanted to stay. Bad as it was, it was home and they knew what was there. And at every opportunity they complained. They complained because there was no water, no food, boring food, lack of variety. They complained that he thought he was better than they. They complained about everything.

They were also afraid of him. At Mount Sinai when God gave them the law, they were so afraid that they sent Moses to talk to God for them. While he was gone, they tried to reduce God to a golden calf. He punished them by grinding it up and making the assembly drink it in water.

Their fear was compounded when he came back shining from having seen God. They demanded he put a sack on his head to cover up what they did not have: the radiance of the glory of God’s presence.

When finally they reached the Promised Land after two years of travel,  they rebelled again claiming that they were not strong enough to take the land. God punished them by making them wander for 38 more years, until everyone that had rebelled were dead.

But because he had disobeyed God in an unfortunate bit of anger, he could not enter the Promised Land himself. He stood on the mountain overlooking it and died. After all this work, his assistant, Joshua, took the people into the Promised Land.

A reluctant leader who became, as Deuteronomy says, the greatest man who ever lived, the Lawgiver.

daily java

Daily Java:

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. (Colossians 2:12)

I remember being baptized. I belonged to a denomination that believed that baptism was the point of salvation. So to accept Jesus, you were baptized. And I was.

December 13, 1959. I was ten years old and living in Freeport, TX. My father was a lineman for Houston Lighting and Power, my mother was a classic homemaker. I had a brother, Gerald. My sister, Nancy, wasn’t born yet.

It was a Sunday night and I had been thinking about it. Of course, like all righteous and godly people, we had Sunday night services, complete with preaching and singing and communion. In the Church of Christ, non-instrumental, weekly communion was a mandate. And it was also on Sunday nights, for those who were “providentially hindered” from being there that morning. In other words, they slept in or something. Nobody much worked on Sundays back then.

In fact, in my mind’s eye, I could see an angel standing at the foot of the person’s bed with a  flaming sword, saying “Thou shalt not go this morning.” In my mind – and I still feel this way – why would anyone miss church on a Sunday morning. Church was boring and long, but I had always gone. So it was perfectly normal to go, and aberrant to miss. Church is a lot more fun these days, but people still miss. I have to admit a blind spot in my thinking because I do not understand why. Just a weirdo, I guess.

But back to the Sunday night in 1959. The preacher gave the sermon and then offered the invitation. It is an oddity of the Church of Christ that they view themselves as logical and dispassionate about their faith and generally eschew emotion. But every logical sermon is followed by an very brief, very impassioned plea coupled with a tearful song for you to respond. Then back to normal.

I responded. I stepped out of the seat and walked to the front. Some of my friends had been baptized and some not. But I responded.

The preacher, Leon Meek, greeted me with an outstretched hand and sat me down on the front row and gave me a little card to fill out saying what I wanted. I did and he read it carefully as if he didn’t know why I was there. My parents were extremely active in the church and my father was a deacon, so he knew why I was there. But the formalities have to be preserved.

After the song, I stood up and he asked me for my confession. Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God. I said I did. So I went to the little room at the side of the baptistery and I guess my father came to help me. I don’t remember.

I put on the white robe and walked into the baptistery. Brother Meek was waiting in the water, wearing a pair of waders and over that, his baptizing shirt, tie and sport coat.

He said, “Upon your confession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” And he put me under.

I will never forget that, going under the water. I came up sputtering like everybody does, and went back up to dry off and get dressed. When I came out of the little room, everyone greeted me. they had held communion for me (we were a closed communion church) and I took it, probably by myself.

I thought maybe something great would happen now. Angels would sing or the Lord would speak or I would be different somehow. But I wasn’t, except that I knew that I had obeyed my Lord and taken him as my Savior. We didn’t call it that, we called it being baptized, as that pretty much summed up the process.

But I remember. It has been 52 years and I remember the little boy who accepted his Lord as his Savior.

Since that time I have run cold and hot in his service. And now, as an older man (as my son points out), I am still serving him. Presently, I do not understand him or his reaction to me, but I still serve him and love him.

I view the process of responding to God differently now than I did then. But even so, I have loved and served him too long to quit now.

daily java

Daily Java:

You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. You have wearied him by saying that all who do evil are good in the Lord’s sight, and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” (Malachi 2:17)

I suppose that the worst thing a kid can do is whine. You hear children in the store that just whine for things. And you want to reach over and staple their mouths shut.

My children knew that whining got them no where, that it did no good. Yet still, on occasion – not real often, thank God – they would still whine about something.

People are the same way. Only we whine for larger things. Why is the world unfair? Why do they get to go on yearly cruises and we haven’t been on one. why does his church grow when mine doesn’t. I’m as good as they are.

After a while, the wining morphs into bitterness. Well, I guess it does no good for me to do good things. God doesn’t care. And we begin to equate goodness, righteousness and blessings with stuff. We get to thinking that the more stuff we have, the better off we are and that if we are good, God will give us stuff.

I hear a lot of TV preachers saying this.

But one only has to go the Bible to see that blessing by God is not necessarily synonymous with having a lot of stuff on earth. Some of the most holy people that ever came down the pike suffered without sometimes even basic necessities.

Why that is, I do not know. But it is true. Physical blessing does not equal spiritual blessing. The godly woman who has a terminal disease and suffers from it. The godly man who is unemployed and financially ruined.

No matter what the name it and claim it people say, God doesn’t care if you have a lot of stuff.

Hollywood actors are godless fools for the most part, yet they are beautiful and rich and admired by millions. Why that is, I don’t know. But it is true.

No real answer to this post. We have to remember that God blesses us when we serve him. It may not be financial, but we have a blessing that the world doesn’t have: we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and one day we will be with him in glory.

As Job said, one himself who was holy yet suffered greatly in his life for no real reason that he knew of: But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. (Job 19:25)

end of day two of my three day fast

Come quickly, Lord, and answer me,
      for my depression deepens.
   Don’t turn away from me,
      or I will die.
Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning,
      for I am trusting you.
   Show me where to walk,
      for I give myself to you.
Rescue me from my enemies, Lord;
      I run to you to hide me.
Teach me to do your will,
      for you are my God.
   May your gracious Spirit lead me forward
      on a firm footing.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, preserve my life.
      Because of your faithfulness, bring me out of this distress.
In your unfailing love, silence all my enemies
      and destroy all my foes,
      for I am your servant. (Psalm 143:7-12)

It is the end of day two of my three day fast. I am hungry, but that is to be figured on. I am however, not dying of hunger. It will be good to get something to eat Thursday, but I can wait. I would rather hear from God than eat.

As I have said before, fasting gives you an odd perspective on things. You see things a little differently when you haven’t eaten in a couple of days. It is not that you are starving or anything. I was getting pretty hungry last February when I went on that 21 day fast. But two days? No.

But it does change your outlook on things. After all, not eating is not normal. it is built into people to eat. So when you deny that basic thing, that basic need, you are doing something that is kind of strange.

But you do it for a reason. And I want to hear God.

Father God, hear me. Accept my offering of this fast and answer my prayers. Amen.

daily java

Daily Java:

When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him. (Genesis 5:21-24)

It must have been a rough culture, the beginning of the world. How long was it before God started talking to people again. We are made in his image. That means that he reacts in many ways like we do. In this instance, he probably reacted with disappointment. It was a while before he wanted to be with them again.

He and humanity had such a great relationship before the fall. After all, he made people to be with him. Then those people turned on him. And it probably took a lot of the desire to be with them out of him.

Not only that, but now they were sinful. They had removed themselves from his plane and had moved to another place. Not until heaven would anyone ever see the face of God again.

But in every situation, there is someone different. Enoch was different.

Whatever it was he did, he did well. God got to the point that he was sick of the world and all its evil. He wished he had never made it. But here was this single point of light: Enoch.

And evidently Enoch had enough trouble in the world that God just reached down and took him. Maybe God was looking for another person like Adam to walk and talk with. Whatever the cause, Enoch was so good and so holy and walked in such close fellowship with God that God took him.

To be taken by God because you were so good. Only one other person you see like that and that person was Elijah. In 2 King 2, the prophet Elijah was taken up by God in a chariot of fire.

Two people out of the entire history of the world. of course, there could have been more and they were not recorded. But whatever the number, here was Enoch one day and gone the next.

What must the people around him thought? He would have been an odd person anyway, living holy in a corrupt world. Then one day people noticed that he was missing. He may even have been gone for a few days. “Where is that goofball?” someone asks.

Maybe he was beginning to make people angry. Maybe his life was in danger. Maybe a lot of things.

But whatever the reason, he was gone, taken up by God, a man too good to live in this world.  as Don McLean said in his song Vincent, “This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

He will never take me. I have already messed up my life entire too much. I have too much baggage. I know he will save me and take me home to be with him when I die. I have no doubt of that. But I have to wait.

There are people I have met who are so good that I wonder why he doesn’t take them. But, as far as I know, he doesn’t.

Enoch was fortunate. I envy him. To be standing one day on this dirty earth and the next in the radiant presence of God.

three day fast, day one

Hear my prayer, O Lord;
      listen to my plea!
      Answer me because you are faithful and righteous.
Don’t put your servant on trial,
      for no one is innocent before you.
My enemy has chased me.
      He has knocked me to the ground
      and forces me to live in darkness like those in the grave.
I am losing all hope;
      I am paralyzed with fear.
I remember the days of old.
      I ponder all your great works
      and think about what you have done.
I lift my hands to you in prayer.
      I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain. (Psalm 143:1-6)

I have finished the first day of my three day fast. And I am hungry.

In 1994, I was going through a  transition in my life and someone told me that the Lord had told them if I would fast and pray for three days, I would get the answer to my prayer. That has been the case ever since.

As far as I know, that was the first “Word from God” that I had ever received. And it was absolutely true. Most of the time.

As in all things spiritual, there is no magic bullet. But it has worked for me more often than not. In fact, it is the three day fasts that seem to accomplish more in discerning the Lord’s will than the much longer ones I have gone on.

I am in transition again. I have no real desire to be in the Foursquare Church after Lincoln. But I do not know where to go or what to do. I know that God has called me to ministry. But what kind? That I do not know. And I need to find out. I want desperately to fulfill his work for my life.

So I fast and pray for three days. I would like to do this every week for a while, Monday through Wednesday. The rest of the week, I am going to alter my eating significantly.

I am heavier than I have ever been. Even though I lost fifty pounds last year (on the 21 day fast the Foursquare Church was supposed to be on – although I did not find anyone else doing it), I gained it back over the course of the rest of the year.

The main reason, I suppose, was depression. The depression of how things were going in Lincoln and the depression of ending our work there and coming back here with my tail between my legs.

The church here received us so warmly. It was amazing. But it still hurt.

Father God, hear my cry. I do not want to be without hope. I want to do your will. And I need to know your will. I praise you and I reach out to you in this fast. Amen.

daily java

Daily Java:

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” (Genesis 3:1-3)

She was naked. And scared. The moment she and Adam ate that fruit, she knew it.

And now they had to hide.

He was embarrassed. He had done something wrong for the first time in his life, and for the first time, felt guilty. And scared. And naked.

They never had worn clothes but it had never mattered. Now it did.

He and Eve were standing looking at the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil. It wasn’t in a prominent place in the Garden. It wasn’t even all that big and fancy a tree. The Tree of Life was big and fancy. It also was in the center and everything else kind of pointed to it. The rest of the Garden radiated from it.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was over to the side. It was not on the main road. Even so, the Father had taken them to it when they first came and told them not to eat from it. They could have anything they wanted from any other tree, but not it.

He just told them once, but it, of course, was enough. They knew where the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was and they knew that it was off-limits.

At first, it didn’t bother them. They lived their lives and were happy. But sooner or later they started coming over to where it was and just looking at it. Adam wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to draw them.

Every evening they walked with the Father and talked and laughed.

But not today. He and Eve had been standing there looking at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil when the serpent came up and told them how good it would taste and that it would change their lives forever. In fact, when they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would be Like God.

Adam was surprised when Eve walked over to the tree and picked a piece of the fruit and bit into it. She handed it to him and, almost as if he were in a dream, he bit into it.

Instantly they knew they had made a mistake. For one thing, the serpent was laughing. For another, they were naked. And the Father was going to be here any minute,

They had to hide.

And they were naked and scared.

daily java

Daily Java:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham: (Matthew 1:1)
Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. (Psalm 1:1)
These are the proverbs of Solomon, David’s son, king of Israel. (Proverbs 1:1)

I finished my yearly reading of the Bible yesterday as I have done for several years now. Today I begin again.

It is an interesting thing, reading the Bible over and over in such a structured way. In some ways it has a negative side. You read snippets without reading in context.

Sometimes, the  action stops in the middle because you have read the required amount. Sometimes a psalm is divided in what seems to be an odd way. Some days, like today in Matthew, will be mostly names of people who had kids.

But even so, the year I didn’t do it, I felt I had missed out on something that I needed. So I went back to it and have done it for several times now.

Each time I read, I get a new insight, something I have not seen before. It is amazing that I can read something year after year and still get fresh insights in it.

But then again, we are dealing with the written word of God, a literary view into the mind of God. How can we possibly plumb the depths.

A mother told me once that her son was tired of coming to church. After all, he knew all the stories. My thought was that if knowing all the stories constituted knowledge of God, many atheists I have known that had read the Bible would go to heaven. They knew the stories because they read them to try to tear God down.

Of course, they didn’t know the God behind the stories. So they didn’t really understand them. I knew the stories, having grown up in the church. But I have to admit that I really didn’t find God until I was in my 20’s. I knew them enough that I was great on Bible quiz teams. Since I always collect trivia, that fit right in.

However, God is not a God of trivial knowledge. He is a God of divine knowledge and wisdom. And you cannot get those unless you know the God behind the Bible.

Read it all you want, but until you know him, it is Shakespeare or the Iliad or Canterbury Tales., eminently quotable. But it has about as much relevance to your life as those books do if you do not know the God behind it.

So I read every year and I try my best to understand and ask God for wisdom and understanding.

May he bless me with greater understanding this year.