Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

As we approach Easter, I hope you observe the idea of the Lenten Season. The original purpose of Lent was not just having ashes put on your forehead or abstaining from eating red meat on Fridays. It wasn’t about sacrificing something you liked during those seven weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Lent was then and should now be about personal examination of your relationship with the Messiah. At the turn of the first century, early converts to Christianity began wanting to celebrate their changed lives through baptism on Easter. But because of the growing popularity of the religion particularly toward the fourth century, church leaders began to question the sincerity of some of the baptismal candidates and required them to go through a period of study and examination about their faith, Lent. Daily commitment to a regimen of study, except for Sundays to ensure they knew about Jesus, knew about their lostness without him, and knew about the cost of their commitment to him.

Today, Lent has lost its meaning in many churches and has been watered down to just another season on the church calendar. It is marked with ash Wednesday as its beginning, when the “faithful” come to the church and a priest or pastor anoints them and signifies their commitment by placing ashes on their forehead in the sign of the cross. For many, that is the extent of their observance. Isaiah describes what has happened to us as we fail to count the cost and study the life of Christ to apply his principles to our own actions. In chapter 55, we read these words:

55:2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Isaiah’s questions imply the state of Israel’s behavior and lifestyle in his day. They, like us, are too interested in material things. The populace was concerned more about what they could eat and wear and use to impress, than they were about what God wanted for them and his plan for them. They forgot about the covenant God made with Abraham in which his desire planned for them to bless all nations. Instead they looked to take from anyone they could. They, like us became consumers instead of producers. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Was the outcry of the nation.

The people began to think about themselves more than they thought about the lostness of those around them. Abraham was supposed to bless the nations around him. His sons and their sons were to do the same. We don’t have to read far in the Old Testament to see the selfish streak in all of us raise its ugly head in the patriarchs of the Jews. They became like their neighbors and looked out for number one. And internal to the nation, the leaders did the same to their countrymen. Take care of me first and then maybe, but not necessarily think about those other kinsmen around me. God doesn’t work that way and doesn’t want us to work that way either. So he brought about some pretty severe judgments on the nations around Israel and ultimately on his chosen people as well.

Clearly, the next few verses in Isaiah 55 show us just how different God wants us to be in the world’s eyes. Listen to his words:

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

55:3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

55:4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.

55:5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;

55:7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

God wants to do incredible things to us and through us to show the rest of the world who he is and what he wants to do with all of his creation. He wants to restore us to our unfallen state. He wants to clean us up and get rid of the worry that plagues us. He wants us to be so different in the world that nations will call us and wonder how and why we do the things we do. He wants us to seek him and return to him. The best thing about all of the things Isaiah shares in these few verses, …return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

God’s pardon is not like the pardons that our governors and presidents give. When those people leave prison with a full pardon, there is still this question that hangs over them in the eyes of those around them. The pardon is real. The crimes are expunged from their record. They are deemed not guilty of the crimes for which they were incarcerated. But that accusation in the public’s eye still lingers. But not when God pardons. He throws our sin as far as the east is from the west, he tells us.

I’m glad the psalmist put it that way. He didn’t know about the north and south poles. He was just a shepherd. But God inspired him to write those words in that way. Think about it. When you go north with a compass, you finally come to a point on the globe where the only direction you can go is south. There is no more north. The same is true if you start a journey to the south. Eventually you will hit a spot where the only direction you can go is north. In fact, my computer tells me if you start at one pole and fly straight to the other, you will travel 8595.35 miles.

But if you start traveling east with your compass, you can travel east for the rest of your life and never hit a west pole. Your compass will continue to let you point east until the earth quits spinning and the sun grows dim. How far is that? As far as God throws your sins. David didn’t understand the difference between those geological points, but we do now. David wrote those words for us as much or more than for the inhabitants of his day.

God forgives. That’s what the world needs to hear. That’s what people are hungry and thirsty for today. And those of us who have experienced the overwhelming grace of God have a duty to share that changed life with those around us. God doesn’t give us the option to sit on our best intentions. He commanded us to go into all the world and make disciples. All the world doesn’t just mean the other side of the globe, although he expects us to support that missional ministry. All the world includes my next door neighbor and yours. It includes the person in the office next to mine and yours. It includes the mother that watches her son practice soccer and sits next to me in the bleachers and that mother that sits next to you when you watch your son or daughter practice. The world is not exclusive. It is all inclusive in God’s eyes. He made everyone. No one is exempt from his love and mercy and grace. We just have to ask and he gives.

Are you hungry and thirsty for him? Here God’s words Isaiah again: “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. … Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near…”

Live in a way that others will want what you have. Not the material things that go away, but the eternal things. A relationship with God that brings joy and peace and gentleness and patience and goodness and all those fruit that his spirit grows in us when we live in his light. In this Lenten Season, learn more about him as you prepare from Easter. Make this season the best you have ever experienced by listening to him and living a life that others will want to emulate.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Check out this episode!

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

What is God really like? We read the Old Testament and see a God who punishes sin in extremely harsh ways. Take for example the incident recorded in Exodus 32 and 33. Moses goes up Mount Horeb and God writes on tables of stone ten commandments as the basis to live in community with him and each other. Because of Moses’ prolonged absence, the people convince his brother, Aaron, that Moses must be dead and will not return. Aaron crafts a gold statue of a cow and that statue becomes their god.

Exodus 33 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”

4 When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.'”6 So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb.God is ready to destroy all those people and start over with just Moses. But Moses prays and asks forgiveness for their sinfulness. He offers his life for theirs and asks God to remain with them on their journey to the land God promised Abraham so many years ago.

God changed his mind and saved his people from destruction, but instead of going straight to the land he had picked out for them as an inheritance, the Israelites remained in the rugged wilderness of the middle east for forty years. They lived as nomads with no home to call their own until every adult who left Egypt died except for Joshua and Caleb. That is harsh punishment.

In the desert, God provided food for them, but it was manna every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Manna. Once when I was in the Army, our rations got a little mixed up and we at chicken cacciatore for breakfast and lunch for longer than anyone should. We couldn’t exchange them. We were stuck with them. It took me almost a decade to enjoy chicken cacciatore again. It gave me a new appreciation for the Israelites’ complaint about manna. The Bible tells us it was sweet, like honey. But there are only so many ways you can fix something. Raw. Boiled. Baked. Add water and yeast to make bread. Fried. How many things can you do with it? But still it was manna. Every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For forty years. If you do the math, that’s 14,560 days. If you ate three meals a day, that 43,680 meals. Of manna. Punishment!

God heard their complaint about manna, though. He solved their problem. They ate quail. Now, if you order quail in a restaurant, it’s usually in one of those high priced places. I’m not sure most of the restaurants I eat in have quail on the menu. Quite a luxury God gave them. But like the manna, when that’s all you have is quail, it gets old no matter how good it was in the beginning. God let them eat it until it came out their nose. They grew really sick of those birds. Literally. Punishment.

God sent hail and brimstone down on the wicked. Sodom and Gomorrah. He turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt when she couldn’t resist one more peak at the town she left behind. God let the waters fall back together to crush the Egyptian army after the Israelites walked across on dry land. God surrounded Elisha with an army of angels ready to strike when the Syrian army paid him a visit. God even struck Miriam with leprosy when she and Aaron got a little jealous of Moses’ position.

For those of you who might be fashion sensitive, they had shoes that didn’t wear out. No shoe shopping. The same pair of sandals. Every day. No matter what you might wear. Oh, yeah. The clothes didn’t wear out either. So for the fashionistas, they wore the same clothes. Every day. For 14, 560 days. Maybe they had one extra set so they could wear one set while the other was in the wash, but remember, they left in a hurry. They didn’t take a lot of luggage with them. Not much of a wardrobe. Punishment.

So we see the God of the Old Testament seems like he was always looking for ways to punish. But that’s not really true. Did he punish? Yes. Did he love? More than we can ever understand. I think sometimes those glimpses of God’s wrath in the Old Testament are kind of like our news media today. Bad news cells. We want the juicy failures so it makes us feel better about ourselves.

The truth is God has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is truth and life and light. He is the creator. He keeps all of this universe humming in perfect order. He is love. He created that emotion because he wants us to experience in our frail, imperfect way, the perfect love the triune Godhead experiences eternally.

The amazing thing about God is that he wants to have a personal relationship with each of us. He wants that relationship so desperately that he came to earth and lived with us wrapped in human flesh. Then sacrificed himself on a Roman cross as payment for the Old Testament covenant punishment we deserve. His mercy relieves us of that payment with our blood. But God hasn’t changed and there is more. Not only does he give us mercy and doesn’t make us pay the penalty for our sins, he pours out his grace on us.

God’s grace is so incredible it is impossible to describe. God’s grace so exceeds our limited capacity to imagine, we cannot put it into words. Many have tried, but we all fall short and just stand in awe of the creator who gives us life. Forgives our sins. Covers us with the blood he shed on the cross for us. Sits at the right hand of the Father intervening on our behalf. His grace is so marvelous we cannot begin to even adequately put it into our thoughts.

The God of grace and mercy and love is the New Testament God we like to hear about and he is all of that. He pours himself out for us. He is an awesome God as the song written by Rich Mullins and made popular by Michael W. Smith echos for us. Don’t get me wrong, I know God’s grace and mercy and love. I’ve experienced it personally. But I also know that God has not and will not change. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. Just like as a good father, there are times that I must punish my kids to help them learn right from wrong, God as our greatest example of a good father disciplines us.

Should we be surprised at the seeming change in personality between the two sides represented in the Old and New? No, but if you look closely at God before and after that dividing line in which God came to earth to live in flesh, you’ll see his love in the Old Testament with scenes like Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing Moses from the river. God giving Sarah a child in her old age. David’s psalms. And the list goes on and on.

The God of the New Testament is also a God of wrath. Just take a look at Acts 5 and see what happened to Ananias and Sapphira or the judgments that will be meted out described in the book of Revelation. God has not and will not change. He is the one constant in everything we do or see or feel. He is the anchor we can depend on because regardless of the political bent of any particular nation, regardless the state of the economy, regardless the health of loved ones or yourself, God is the same and God cares.

What does that mean for us? It means in a hopeless, loveless, wicked world, we have hope. We have love. We have righteousness. Because we can have God, not just with us, but in us. He can forgive us and then if we let him, he can guide us through this life and into the next safe from the destroyer of souls.

In this Lenten Season, remember who God is. Remember he came to show us we have hope because he came and died for us. But he didn’t just die as a sacrifice. If he stayed in the grave as a sacrifice, we would not be worshiping him. We would not have churches around the globe. We would not die as martyrs for Jesus, the Messiah. No, if Jesus had only died on the cross, he would have been another good man doing marvelous things for people.

But Easter came. Jesus arose. He conquered death, our enemy. He lives today. Remember who God is. Remember why we have hope. Spend time listening to him and learning about him as Easter approaches.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Check out this episode!

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

My pastor is going through a series of sermons entitled “For God So Loved” through the Lenten Season. There is a devotional book that goes along with it that has devotionals written by several different authors. And for the next few weeks, I will be using the same scriptures and themes that come from that devotional to align with the sermon series my church is going through. So today I’ll be looking at a passage from Psalms 17 in which David writes these words:

Keep me as the apple of your eye;

   hide me in the shadow of your wings

9 from the wicked who are out to destroy me,

   from my mortal enemies who surround me.

10 They close up their callous hearts,

   and their mouths speak with arrogance.

11 They have tracked me down, they now surround me,

   with eyes alert, to throw me to the ground.

12 They are like a lion hungry for prey,

   like a fierce lion crouching in cover.

13 Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down;

   with your sword rescue me from the wicked.

14 By your hand save me from such people, Lord,

   from those of this world whose reward is in this life.

We feel like David sometimes, don’t we? Try as hard as we may to live like we are supposed to, the bad guys seem to win and we want them to get what’s coming to them. We know there is a judgment day they will face. We know Jesus will sort the sheep and the goats. We know we will ultimately be avenged for what wicked men have done to us in this life. But we would like to see a little of that justice now, wouldn’t we?

I’d like us to go back and look at the setting in which David wrote this psalm for a minute. Samuel, the great and last judge of the nation of Israel, warned them about the trouble a king would bring on them. But the people insisted on having a king like the nations around them. God chose Saul for that position. Interestingly enough, of all the troubles a king would bring, like taxes, standing armies, forced labor, and so forth, all the things Samuel mentioned, Saul was the only king that did not impose any of those things on the people. David did, but not Saul. But Saul disobeyed a command God gave him through Samuel and made a sacrificial offering he was not authorized to make. Only a priest could perform that duty, but Saul took it upon himself to do it when Samuel was delayed. It cost Saul the kingdom and brought about the enmity between Saul and David. Samuel anoint David as the next king, but he had not yet been crowned.

Saul’s jealousy raged. He tried to kill David on many occasions and David fled for his life. As one of Israel’s greatest warriors, defeating the Philistines on the battlefield many times, the nations around Israel wanted the young warrior dead. Now the king of Israel wanted him dead, too. David had enemies surrounding him from every corner. He felt like he had nowhere to turn even though he was doing what he thought God wanted him to do in fighting for his nation and his king.

Remember, that on at least two occasions, David had the opportunity and the means to take Saul’s life, but refused because he would not harm the man God anointed as king. Instead, David ran for his life. It wasn’t fair. God laid out some spectacular things for him to do. God made some incredible promises to him and gave him talents that brought fear to his enemies. (When you can defeat a nine foot giant wearing battle armor with a sling and a stone, that can cause people to be afraid of you.) Yet David displayed a gentle spirit with many who came in contact with him.

Now on the run, David pours out his heart to the God he learned to trust as a shepherd out on the hillside protecting his father’s sheep against the wild animals in the wilderness. Was it fair? No. Did God ever tell us life would be fair? No. Was David’s life on the run an easy one? No. Did God ever tell us life would be easy? No. In fact, Jesus told his disciples to expect trouble. Following after God is bound to put you in opposition to the world. The average person will not like what you do if you follow his teaching. He puts boundaries on your actions. You can’t do anything you want to do. Your rights stop where they collide with responsibilities.

I would love life to be like that a couple of those line we read. “… hide me in the shadow of your wings,  from the wicked who are out to destroy me… Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down;  with your sword rescue me from the wicked. By your hand save me from such people…”

Doesn’t that sound good? But God doesn’t always do that. In fact, like with his son, Jesus, we often face the worst. God sometimes puts us in the very front of the battle lines of this world and we must stand against some of the most wicked and atrocious acts Satan has in his bag of tricks. Does that mean God doesn’t love us? No. Does it mean he has abandoned us? No. Does it mean he doesn’t care about the struggles we face in this world? No. God still loves and cares for us.

But as with David as he ran for his life, we sometimes draw closest to God in the times of our greatest struggles. Sometimes God allows these things to happen because it is in those times when we find we have nowhere to go for relief that we throw ourselves into God’s great arms because we know he is our last and only hope. It’s at times like those that we learn the greatest lessons about how little of life we control and how much we rely on him for every heartbeat and every breath of life.

God loves us so much he lets us endure some of the hardships of this world so we might draw closer to him and find solace in his embrace when life seems to overwhelm us in every direction we turn. Then when the lions roar, when the vipers strike, the hurricane winds and floods push to engulf us, we can rest in the assurance that God’s hand will reach down and cover us. He will not let us suffer more than we can endure. He will rescue us. But he does so will his purpose in mind.

God still wants his message to ring through our lives so others will see the peace in our hearts that come from knowing him. He wants others to know the legacy his son left us. Peace that when the chaos of life crushes in upon us, we can know that with our last breath, we awake in a new heaven and a new earth surrounded by the brilliance of God glory forever. A place where pain and death and evil can never touch us again.

Will I stop praying David’s seventeenth psalm just because I know my future in heaven? No, I would still like relief from the wickedness that plagues this world. I would still like God to intervene to stop the suffering that comes from the evil that lurks in the dark places that seem to encroach more and more on the innocent. I still cry out like David for God to rise up and confront those who find their reward in this world instead of in his kingdom.

But I also read the last chapter of the book. I know how it all ends. I have confidence and hope that someday soon Jesus will come as the avenger for all his children. And I cry for those who do not know him. Their eternity will not be as short or pleasant as they imagine. Eternity is something our human mind cannot grasp. Eternal punishment and banishment from the God of creation is something we cannot fully understand or imagine. I pity the lost whose souls will forever experience that awful place.

During this Lenten Season, take time to understand what Jesus has done for you in making a way to avoid that place of eternal lostness. Take time to think about the avenger who will come again and make right a world that has gone very wrong because of our refusal to accept God as God. Stop and remember that he will one day soon call an end to time and he will do exactly what the psalmist asked. He will rise up, confront, bring down, and destroy those of this world whose reward is in this life.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Check out this episode!