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

Exile sounds like a pretty nasty, terrible word, doesn’t it? My pastor is taking us through a series called “Embracing Exile,” inspired by the book authored by T. Scott Daniels with the same title. When you hear the word exile, you probably imagine the thousands fleeing political persecution or those driven out of their homeland by disease, poverty, violence, or even genocide. 

We think of all the bad things associated with the word. We believe exile a horrendous tragedy that no one should face. But take a hard look at the life cycle of the Israelites in the Old Testament. Dr. Daniels points out the nation performed at its best spiritually when going through times of exile. ¹

Saul, David, and Solomon served as probably the three most notable kings in the nation’s history, and the only three who led a united Israel. But it only took these three kings’ behavior to split the country and drive it away from serving God. Israel’s kings were not all bad, there were a few good men, but not many. 

During their exiles, though, the Israelites listened to their prophets. They clung to the hope heard in God’s words. They changed their ways to serve God in the ways he desired. Exile helped the Israelites to see their dependence on God instead of themselves. In fact, Jeremiah clearly saw how God moves in times of exile. The story in Jeremiah 32 shows remarkably well how God works even in times of exile for his people. 

King Zedekiah didn’t like Jeremiah’s prophecies. He always came with bad news. Zedekiah wanted to hear the words of his other prophets. “You’ll win this war.” “Go ahead and protest against Babylon. That pagan doesn’t stand a chance.” “God’s got this, stand up and fight.” 

Then there is Jeremiah. “King, not only will you lose the war, you and your sons will end up in Babylon. You won’t be king long. Instead, you’ll be a prisoner and who knows what that pagan king will do to you. But don’t worry, God will let some of us come back in 70 years.”

Yeah, Jeremiah wasn’t very popular. That’s why Zedekiah put him in cisterns and prison and other not so wonderful places. So there Jeremiah sat in the court of the guards, house arrest, jail. He knew Israel’s days were coming to a close. Soon, Babylon’s soldiers would come screaming through the gates. They would kill or capture every official, and cart them off to into exile. 

Jeremiah, as a prophet, heard from God. He shared these words with us:

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah. For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, “Why do you prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it;”²

God told him those things before. Nothing new here. God reiterated the stuff he’d been trying to get the people to hear for years but refused. Once more the message came, and Jeremiah delivered it. Then God told him something strange.

“Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

“And I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions and the open copy. And I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. I charged Baruch in their presence, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’”³

God told all the prophets of that era Israel’s disobedience meant their destruction. The Northern Kingdom already fell to foreign aggression. Now, the Southern Kingdom faced Nebuchadnezzar. King of the most powerful nation in the known world. His army never lost, and his army stood at the gates. The city already felt the impact of the siege.

Buy fields when you know the enemy will take it? Ridiculous! Pay full price for land you will never use? What was God thinking? Didn’t God know the Babylonians had siegeworks growing around the outer walls every day? Didn’t he tell the prophet the city would fall? Why spend good silver on a lousy investment? Hadn’t Solomon’s proverbs advised against such foolishness? 

It’s interesting how many times God tells his people to do things that look pretty foolish to the world. Have you ever noticed? Noah built an ark when it had never flooded anywhere before. Abraham took off for parts unknown believing God would make a great nation of his lineage at the age of 75 when he had no children. David, still a shepherd, challenged a seasoned giant of a soldier in hand to hand combat with a sling and a stone. God asks his followers to do things that look foolish sometimes. 

Paul gives us a clue when he tells us God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom, though. He knows what he’s doing far better than we do. We think we exude intelligence and wisdom sometimes, but all you need do is look around at the state of affairs we created, and it doesn’t take much to discover we’re not so smart after all. 

Jeremiah believed God. He bought the field, signed the title, and put the deed in clay jars to preserve them long enough for the nation to return. Jeremiah trusted God’s people would wake up in their exile, and return to their worship of the one true God, Jehovah. He believed they would thrive in exile, unlike what they did in what they thought were the good old days of the kingdom. 

You see, we get it wrong so often. We consider the comfortable, prosperous, easy times the ones we should desire. Looking over Israel’s history, the history of the early church, often my personal account, I’m not sure we have it right. My best times spiritually sometimes come when I can’t see how I’m going to make it tomorrow. When no solution to the problem presents itself except God, I must rely on him. I have no choice, so I draw close to him for life.

When we think we can solve every problem ourselves, we believe we don’t need God. We get into our head we are as smart as he is. We look at life like the rich young ruler and forget an accounting comes much sooner than we expect. The truth be told, we don’t do a very good job of solving things. Just look around at the mess we’ve made of the world and tell me how well we’ve done. 

I’m not asking for it, by any means, but sometimes I wonder if we would be better off with more struggles in life. I think we would need God more if life weren’t so easy. Maybe we need to live in a state of exile and realize how much we need God. Perhaps it’s time we embrace a different lifestyle that pushes us toward him instead of thinking we are self-sufficient all the time. Of course, if the revelator is right, it might not be long before we find ourselves in just that position. You might want to start practicing a little more reliance on him starting today.      

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. 

¹ T. Scott Daniels, Embracing Exile, Living Faithfully as God’s Unique People in the World (Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City, MO, 2017), pg 22-23.

² Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

³ Ibid.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

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.

Being a pastor in several churches, you get to see some of the best and the worst in society. And honestly, sometimes it’s easy to get a little jaded if you’re not careful. You watch a small segment of society try to take advantage of the generosity of churches that try to reach out to those in need. Their stories tug at your heartstrings and make you want to do anything you can to help because of the sad plight they find themselves. 

Then you happen to see them getting into their brand new BMW in the next county. They are a little surprised you’re there, but not embarrassed in the least as they have discovered a way to make lots of money through the generosity of others. And it’s all tax-free. No one knows about it. The church seldom keeps records or reports it to the government. They certainly didn’t. And so it goes. Money. Wealth. Things. 

Jesus warns us about it. He said these words after a story that, to us, can be a little confusing. “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The confusing story is about a dishonest manager that got caught and was about to be fired. So he goes out and begins slashing the bills his master’s debtors owe. He hopes by doing so, he will gain favor in their eyes and have some means of survival after his discharge since he has no other skills. One bill is reduced by 20% another by 50%. His master finds out and gives this report. “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”

Jesus goes on to say, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.  If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”^[1]

I’ve got to tell you, it’s easy for me to see the logic in the last part of Jesus’ teaching. Why would God entrust us with great riches if he can’t trust us with little things? I talk about that to the people that work with me all the time. 

New people that come to the team are always scrutinized until I get to know them. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but we all think differently. We understand words in different ways and have different experiences, talents, and skill sets. So until I know how my instructions are received, understood, and carried out as a leader, responsible for the outcome of some project, those working with me to help complete that project are under some level of scrutiny to make the end result what it is meant to be. If I’m not sure the capability of one of the team members, I have to watch that team member more closely than those with whom I’ve worked  in the past whose strengths and weaknesses I already know, so that I can make whatever needed adjustments early so work doesn’t need to be redone or a project fails because I fail to give appropriate guidance. 

It’s all about communication. Learning how to trust and when to trust. And if one of the team members never learns to move in the same direction as the rest of the team, that member will never get critical pieces of the project. The outcome is too important to put critical pieces in the hands of someone that is not trustworthy. And if that goes on too long, that team member will disappear from the team. It’s just the way it is. Those who refuse to be trustworthy, dig themselves into a hole they have a hard time climbing out of.

So this trust part of Jesus lesson is pretty simple, especially when it comes to money. A few questions get to the root of it all. Whose money is it? Yours or Gods? All it takes is a quick peek at your bank account, and you can tell. Do you think you are a steward or an owner? Are your palms turned up or down when holding the funds God entrusts to you? Simple, but very tough questions we must answer when we read those last verse in this discourse.

But what about those earlier verses? “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

Does God want us to be shrewd the way the world is shrewd? Does he want us to make friends with unrighteous wealth? What does that really mean? 

I’ve been thinking about that the last few days since I read those verses and starting putting together my thoughts about this podcast. At first, I was going to skip over those words and just do what most of us do and go straight to the “you can’t serve two masters” part. But something stopped me from doing that. 

First, the word used for wealth is the Semitic word mammon often also translated as money or possessions. It reminds us that whatever we have in this world is not really ours. We are just stewards. It doesn’t go with us into eternity. It’s not the eternal treasure that lasts Jesus talks about elsewhere. But we must have possessions here. We can’t survive with nothing. 

Yes, most of us have more than we need. We live in a culture that pushes us to accumulate more and more and more. The motto “the boys with the most toys win” is alive and well in our culture. We seem to strive for that extra pay that bigger house, that newer car. But do we need those things? No. We want them, but we don’t need them. Our culture demands we have them. Our need does not. 

Our need demands we have our daily bread. Enough to sustain us for another day. Enough clothing to stay clean and dressed appropriately for the climate in which we live. Not necessarily fashionable according to the cultural fad, but dressed comfortably for the environment. We need housing to protect us from the weather. Not mansions and not cardboard boxes, but housing sufficient to protect us from the weather in our particular locale. That’s about the extent of our real physical needs daily; food, clothing, shelter, and not much else. 

Look around you at all the extras God has entrusted to you. And none of it lasts. It all goes away. It all requires time and energy and more resources to take care of it. And every single item you add to the list of things takes a little more time, a little more energy, a little more resources to care for it that could be used for something else. All of our time-saving devices …don’t. Even as I write this, I’m thinking of the time I have to spend removing the deck from my riding mower that is supposed to save time. It has a bent shaft, and so I’ll spend a couple of hours removing it, taking it to be repaired, a couple of hours putting it back on, and a bunch of dollars that could have been used for something else. What happened? I hit a hidden rock in my yard that is too big to mow with a push mower and probably too big for two people. But the culture caught me like it catches most of us. 

So what does the scripture tell us? I think it says be smart with all that stuff. Use it the same way the world does. Don’t hold back. They use it to make friends. They use it to invite others into their piece of the world. They get people into their fold. They use their possessions, whether money or things, to capture the interest of those around them for some purpose.

Sometimes the purpose is nefarious. Sometimes it really is just to make friends. Sometimes it’s for business, to lure you into one of those pyramid schemes or something. But shrewd people of this world will use their possessions to capture the attention of those around them. 

I think Jesus is telling us, God entrusted his followers with the same worldly possessions unbelievers use for their purposes. Why not use those same tools, those same kinds of possessions for holy purposes? Why not recognize those possessions as gifts from God and use them just to make friends? Or capture the attention of those around you to show Christlike behavior? Why not use the possessions at your disposal to do good in a world that has evil intent on its mind? Why not recognize as shrewd followers of Christ, we can use the same possessions, the same money, the same mammon the world treats at tools to tempt as tools to win people to God. 

It’s incredible to me how many things God created that we have perverted. Why not turn the tables? If there is something we think we created (we probably didn’t, but that’s another story), why not turn it around and use it for God? Use the skills and talents and processes the world might have taught you in business and use them to build the Kingdom of God. Bring others to Christ with the same tools you use to bring others to your business. Christ will sell himself, we just need to make the introductions. 

Be shrewd, not worldly, but shrewd. Use what God has put in your hands. And if he can trust you with the little things, you’ll be surprised how your life will change as you become a steward in his Kingdom. 

---

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. 

^[1]Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it seems the world keeps gravitating to the darker side of things. Our news reports never seem to share the good news, only bad. Our advertisements tell us how we might get better with their products implying we are in a sad state without them. Our bodies are never fit enough, lean enough, young enough, pretty enough, energetic enough, something enough, so there is some product out there that will help that. Well, not really. You just can’t push a button or take a pill and expect to look like whoever you see on the screen. Biology doesn’t work that way. 

And the good news doesn’t sell. No one gives the salesman money for a product when he tells you, “Hey, you look great. Why don’t you get some of this miracle stuff that will help you look good.” His commission would be pretty small. Or what newspaper would sell if it only told about the boy scouts helping ladies across the street? Unfortunately, we gobble up the murders, robberies, and rapes, but don’t pay much attention to the bright news in the world. At least, it isn’t advertised very much. 

No, we live in a culture and a world that seems to grow darker every day. And it’s really a shame because there are some really good things happening around us if we would open our eyes and see it. In fact, right this moment, I’m performing a minor miracle or two or a dozen. I’m sitting at my MacBook typing notes for this podcast, looking out the back door of my very comfortably conditioned home in San Antonio. Inside my home, it’s 72°. Outside, it already feels like 82°, and it’s not 10:00 yet in the middle of September. 

The fact that I can even put the words on paper almost as fast as I can talk is something people 100 years ago would never think possible. Manual typewriters were around then, but not computers, not laptops, not the ability to dictate to a machine and have words appear as you spoke them. It would appear as a miracle to them. 

And I’m enjoying my favorite beverage as I’m putting this together. Coffee from my Keurig. It took less than a minute to have a steaming hot cup of coffee in any of dozens of flavors. Go back to that 100-year-old spot again. Fifty cents for that cup of coffee would seem a little outrageous to them, but less than a minute from start to finish for a hot cup of coffee? No way! Impossible. 72° in the house? Words appearing on a screen that looks like paper as soon as you speak them? Madness! 

Today though, I tapped my fingers on the counter impatiently waiting for that cup of coffee. I can’t believe it takes a whole minute for that stupid machine to get through the process. And my MacBook makes so many mistakes sometimes misunderstanding my Tennessee-Texas-Georgia-North Carolina-Louisiana-German-all those other places I spent too much time accent. I have to go back through and correct all those mistakes. It takes me five or ten minutes sometimes. And why does my air conditioning fluctuate those three degrees between 70° and 73°? Why can’t it stay a perfect 72° all the time? 

And I spent a whole 8 minutes in line at McDonald’s waiting for an order of fries and a milkshake, too. Can you believe it took 8 minutes to get such a small order ready? There was only one person in front of me, so I just don’t understand why it took so long! 

We have become so impatient, haven’t we? Fast food. Fast news. Twitter, Snap Chat, Instagram, and whatever the newest stuff to get instant information from our friends. We just can’t wait. Time rushes past, and we don’t think we have time for anything. But then…

There is this verse from Numbers 21 that says: “but the people became impatient on the way.” That starts the story of serpents God let loose in the Israelite camp because of their grumbling and complaining about their wandering in the wilderness, a problem they created themselves because of their disobedience. Remember, God barred the Israelites from the promised land because of their disobedience, just as he banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden because of their disobedience. And because of their griping and whining, serpents came into the camp, and people started to die. 

God told Moses to erect a brass serpent on a cross and put where people could see it, and anyone bit by a serpent who looked at that serpent would not die. He did. They did. People didn’t die. The cure worked. Later, Jesus used the narrative imagery to indicate his death and the redemption, the cure for sin, that would come for all who believed in him and his sacrifice for them. 

Impatience led to many deaths in Israel’s camp. Impatience leads to all kinds of problems today. We get anxious for no reason. Our impatience gets us in trouble. We stopped projects or rush through them haphazardly because of our impatience. We accept shoddy work instead of excellence because of impatience. We want things now instead of understanding the best most often comes for those that are patient enough to wait.  

Instant gratification is the name of the game in our culture. We become more and more like Veruca Salt in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” a selfish, rotten brat who shows her wealthy family no mercy and has absolutely no regard for other people’s property. She wants anything and everything, and she wants it now. But what does it do to us? Veruca Salt lost. The Israelites lost. Impatience causes us to lose much more often than not.  We need to stop and take inventory of our emotions every once in a while and make sure we are not acting like Veruca Salt and her compatriots. I need to remember than a minute for a cup of coffee is okay. Eight minutes for a milkshake and fries is really fast compared to a hundred years ago. And spending a few minutes correcting mistakes because of my poor pronunciation is a lot better than trying to read my poor penmanship that would take a lot more time to write by hand.

Why have we become so impatient? Maybe because we think we know so much. Knowledge or I should say information is doubling every 12 months. Before 1900, it doubled every 100 years or so. Some say the volume of information will soon double every 12 hours because of the digital age. Julian Carver of Saragram created an infographic that gives a visual comparison of digital bytes to physical lengths. First, remember that a megabyte is a million bytes, a group of eight zeros and ones used to replicate a letter or number or character in the digital world. A million megabytes equals one terabyte, and a million terabytes equal one exabyte. He shows that if an ant is a megabyte, the diameter of the sun is an exabyte. An exabyte is a million, million megabytes. The total sum of information on the internet today is about five exabytes. So if a megabyte were the length of an ant, the internet would be the diameter of five suns side by side. And that doubles faster than every 12 months. 

Or maybe we have become so impatient because we know we move so fast. 100 years ago, cars were still a luxury. Horsepower even meant something to those who heard the term because they used horses routines to pull plows or wagons or to carry loads too heavy for men to bear. Speed, even with the new horseless carriage, didn’t top fifteen or twenty miles per hour. Those speeds only came in short spurts. Now 50 is about the slowest interstate speed in cities and in west Texas 80 to 85 mph speed limits are not unusual. 

Then there is that astronomy stuff we learn about in school and on television documentaries. The earth doesn’t stand still either. Depending on where you’re standing, the earth spins at different speeds since the whole thing spins together. Standing at the equator, you’re moving at about 1,037 mph. At my house just north of San Antonio, I’m moving at about 900 mph. The further north or south you go the slower you spin until you get to the poles that take a whole day to turn in a circle. Then we’re traveling around the sun once a year. To make that 584 million mile journey, we are moving at about 66,627 mph through space. But then our whole solar system is moving inside the Milky Way at about 448,000 mph. On top of that, astronomers tell us the Milky Way is on a collision course with its nearest neighbor galaxy at about 157,000 mph. 

So in this fast-paced world that keeps spinning at mind-boggling speeds, we need to stop and take a deep breath, pause, and consider God, the creator of the magnificent world in which we live. After all, he put all of this in place so we can survive on this tiny rock hurtling through the vastness of the universe. We need to stop and enjoy its beauty every once in a while and learn patience. 

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.

Bill-paying weekend, don’t you hate it? Of course, the banks and creditors have made it so much easier than it used to be. Maybe that’s why, as individuals and as a nation, we are in so much more debt than we’ve ever been. On bill-paying weekend you used to stack all the bills on the table, pull out the checkbook and painfully write out that check to each creditor, stuff the check and bill stub into an envelope, write your return address in the upper left corner, put a stamp in the top right corner, and then grab the next bill to do the same again. 

Now, it’s just point and click, and in about two minutes, all the bills are paid with the bill-pay convenience most banks give you today, and most creditors are happy to subscribe. In fact, creditors will happily enroll you in auto-pay to let you no longer worry about even doing the point and click business. They’ll just collect the minimum amount due so they can collect the maximum amount of interest. Progress – maybe. 

We are up to our ears in debt as a nation, and it’s easy for us to swallow that because most of us across the country are up to our ears in debt individually. It’s become a normal part of life. Finance a car, mortgage a house, finance school, clothes, vacations, even groceries. We are a debt ridden society. It’s no wonder we let Congress get away with putting us in trillion-dollar debt. So, if we were to pay off the debt today, my two-year-old granddaughter’s bill would be about $65,600, as would yours, and your neighbor’s and every other person living in the US. Pretty sobering when you think about what we’ve done in those terms, doesn’t it? $65,600 – not per household, but person. Do you have a family of four kids, five? Now the bill is over $325,000. Sorry about that. 

I digress. What got me thinking about bills and debt and those things are tied to the scriptures from the lectionary. In Luke 14, Jesus talked about the owner making sure he had enough money to build the house before building or else people would make fun of him when he ran out of money after the foundation was done. Or the king would count the cost if he only had 10,000 soldiers against his enemies 20,000 soldiers. He’d send a delegate to try to start some peace negotiations instead of losing his kingdom in battle. 

Paul writes to Philemon and asks him to take back his runaway slave, Onesimus as a brother without punishment. Under Roman law, Philemon has the right to punish Onesimus any way he chooses, up to and including death. But Paul reminds Philemon of the debt he owes Paul for bringing life to him through the gospel. Paul calls in the debt and asks Philemon to treat his slave as a Christian brother. Hard words in Roman culture. 

Then we come to the scriptures from the psalmist in chapter 139:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Have you thought about the fact that God made you with a specific purpose in mind? It started at the very beginning with Adam and Eve. He gave Adam the charge of naming every plant and animal. In the ancient world, naming something or someone gave it purpose, meaning, usefulness. So, God entrusted to Adam the task of giving purpose to everything else he had created. 

Why would God give such a monumental task to Adam? Because he made us in his image to be co-reagents, stewards of the world he created. This place is his world; we are its caretakers. Our purpose is to propagate the world and be caretakers of it. We haven’t done such a great job of doing the task God gave us to do, but that is why we are here. 

What does that have to do with debt? We owe God everything. We owe him the life he gave us. We owe him the talents he built into us. We owe him for the sustenance he provided in his creative acts that we might survive on this third rock from the sun. We owe him for the order he brings to the chaos around us. How can you put a price on what he has done for us? We owe him everything. 

Compare what God has done with the other debt you might have. Is your soul worth more than your house? Your car? Those vacations or presents or nights out that still plague your credit cards? How about that $65,600 the government has racked up for you? Is what God has given you worth more than that? I expect the answer is pretty simple. 

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 

No matter what your state in life at the moment, God gives life and breath and hope. His kingdom is here for all who are bold enough to receive it. When we do, he gives his Spirit to those who ask. He empowers us to live a life of hope because we know this world is not the end. This world is in labor pains of giving birth to a new earth, a new heaven. One in which chaos and evil and pain and suffering will be removed. We will once again be positioned to carry out the task God intended for us from the beginning, to tend to his holy place. A new earth where he comes to commune with mere humans in the cool of the day. Where we can bask in his presence and enjoy his company as caretakers of the space he allows us to share with him throughout eternity.

Do I have debts to pay? Oh, yes! I realize it every month at bill-paying time. But I also know I have debts to pay every time I read God’s word, view his handiwork, hear his creation sing his praises, share with him my innermost thoughts. God made me with a purpose. He gives me life to fulfill that purpose. Each day brings me closer to the hope of spending eternity with him in a renewed world. I just need to keep living for him and obeying his commands. 

Is it easy? Not in this world. There are lots of conflicts and competing voices to filter out. Is it impossible? No. God gives us his help, his Spirit, his empowerment when we trust him with all we have and all we are. Is it worth it? Absolutely. There is no better rest than knowing regardless of my present circumstances; my eternal destiny will be with him. 

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. 

 The lectionary selections on this site come from the Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005. Consultation on Common Texts, Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Reproduced by permission.

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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.

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

You’ll find something interesting about military members who return from combat with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Sometimes it can be pretty severe, causing a person to be unable to function well because of their experiences. Sometimes it’s a mild case that just causes a few hiccups and peculiarities in their behavior. One of those peculiar behaviors can be seen in most of those returning from combat zones.

I admit I’m one of those trying to recover from some of the things I’ve seen in some of those places the Army chose to send me over the years. It’s not always easy, and I don’t always know what will trigger those memories, but one thing that I really don’t like and most of my military friends who have been in combat share my aversion. I don’t like to sit with my back to public doors. I want to see the exits when I’m in public. 

In restaurants, I prefer booths against the wall, and I want to face the entrance. In theaters, I like the back rows. They are high, and I can see everyone else in the place. I’m not very good in large crowds and tend to creep to the edges, not into the middle. I get anxious when I end up in positions that put me in opposition to my preferred spots. I’m working on it and know the likelihood of something happening is slim, but still, the brain works in strange ways after facing some of those past experiences.

What’s really fun is putting a bunch of us in a room together and watching to see who gets the prime seats first and watching the reactions of those who didn’t quite get there in time. I know my PTSD is not so severe as some of my buddies and in those instances try to make sure their needs are met, but I can’t say I’m always comfortable with the idea. 

The lectionary from Luke chapter 14 reminded me of those seating peculiarities. Jesus told a parable about a wedding feast that goes like this:

Now Jesus told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of hone, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you. ‘Give you place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”¹

I remember in one of my dad’s pastorates one of the ladies in the church told us how she “humbled” herself. She had hair down past her waist when she let it down. Of course, she would never do that in the church in those days; she always had it tied up in a bun. But every week, she let her hair down and dunked it in the commode to show God she loved him. We didn’t ask if she flushed first. Sometimes when you stood too close, I’m not sure she did. 

And I’m not sure why she felt the need to tell us how humble she was by trying to flush her hair down the toilet. I’m not so sure God really cared much about that. And I’m sure he didn’t care about her proud attitude of her faithful ritual. My dad usually had a hard time keeping a straight face when she proudly announced her weekly ritual. The kids sitting around the church didn’t even try. We giggled and laughed as you would expect.

I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant by taking a lower place and being pulled up to a place of honor. I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t want us to stuff our heads in toilets to let him know we were humble. That’s pretty ridiculous in my book. And for all of us who heard it and knew her, we knew she took a lot of pride in her ridiculous ritual. She wouldn’t miss that dunking for anything…even her son’s graduation! Can you imagine? I don’t think God can either. He did make an incredible zoo. 

We should strive toward a life of humility, though. Jesus is described as humble. He was God but didn’t flaunt it. He could have. He could have grandstanded and shown off a lot more than he did. We have a few instances where he did some amazing things. Feed 5,000 men plus their families with a boy’s lunch. Make new eyes for a blind man. Fix legs that had never walked. Raise kids from the dead. Call a man out of the tomb who had already started to smell in the Mideast heat. Yep, those are pretty outlandish kinds of acts. But in most of those instances, he told them not to tell anyone. Just go about your business. Leave my name out of it. Give praise to the Father, don’t mention me. And I think he meant it. 

Of course, it didn’t work. People saw those miracles or the results of those miracles and wanted to know how they happened. And the recipients couldn’t help but tell their stories. Jesus was at the center of every one of them. He didn’t ask for recognition, but he got it. In fact, he got so much of it the religious leaders decided he needed to die. Interesting how it was okay for them to break the rules because they thought he was breaking the rules, huh? 

So what does it mean to be humble? Jesus knew he was the son of God. God gave him an incredibly important mission. Yet he was humble. We define the word as having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance. If we look at some synonyms of the word, we find these: meek, deferential, respectful, submissive, diffident, self-effacing, unassertive; unpresuming, modest, unassuming, self-deprecating; subdued, chastened

But he was God incarnate. How could he be meek and submissive and modest and unassuming as God incarnate? I think the answer lay in his relationship to the Father. Jesus was fully God but set aside the glory of heaven to dwell in this space with us. He assumed the same flesh and blood we have and leaned on his heavenly Father for actions that seemed so miraculous. 

He told us we would do more than he did after he returned to the Father, and he sent the Comforter to be with us. The same power that raised him from the dead is available to us to do the work the Father has in store for us. What is that work? Redeeming the world through him. We are instruments of his love, and we can tap into the power source, his spirit, to enable us to fulfill the role he planned for us. 

But we must remember it is not us. Paul reminds us, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” That is true, but I must remember it is through him, not through me. Jesus fed the 5,000 through the power of the triune godhead. He raised the dead by the power of the triune godhead. He rose on Easter by the power of the triune godhead. Our finite brains can’t really wrap our minds around what that means. God is one, yet three. He did all those things recorded in the gospels and empowered others to do incredible things recorded in Acts and the epistles. 

When we accept Jesus as Lord of life, King of all, the creator who brings order out of chaos and forgives us for our sins, he empowers us to do the works he set out for us. Will we do the kinds of miracles recorded in the New Testament? Maybe, maybe not. For sure, we can love those around us with a love that transcends that which the world knows or understands. We can demonstrate God’s love to those around us and cause them to wonder what happened to us to make us different from the rest of humanity. 

I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of soldiers end up with PTSD as a result of combat. I’m appalled at what humans can and will do to other humans whether in combat, as terrorist acts, or just through plain acts of evil. I’ve seen some of it that I would like to forget but know I never will. God destroyed humanity once with a flood because all our thoughts and intentions were evil from the time we were youths. 

Jesus’ death and resurrection changed all that, though. He makes it possible for our minds to be transformed and for us to begin a better journey. One filled with his love for one another. One that because of his empowerment, can show the world a piece of the new heaven and new earth that awaits his adopted children. 

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. 

¹Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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